For the month of May I started a 30-day 30-minute walking challenge.  I sometimes take photos of something on my walk, this was from the other day before we got snow.  This was from down the lane where we took the path into the pine trees.  The temps were pretty nice making such a wonderful walk/hike.

But, 4 days later we had this.  I put a ruler into the snow, and it measured 6 inches, some areas got in the upwards of 12 inches.

Despite the snow that didn't stop me from walking.  By the time I walked the snow was starting to melt and of course the mud came back.

The temps are still not the greatest windy and cold, and at times I have a hard time believing that spring is here, at least I hope we get a spring.

Sugaring season is over and everything has been cleaned up and put away, Jim has been cutting up trees that have come down and felling trees that need to come down getting our wood supply built up for next winter.  In our sugaring season we ended up with 12 batches of  syrup.  You never know how much syrup you get with a batch, some years we boiled close to 18 batches of syrup.  This year we cut back on the amount of taps we put in, and I kept out a bottle from each batch to compare the color of the syrup.  The colors were almost identical but with each batch the flavor got just a bit bolder, not too bold though, or as bold as what we call cooking syrup so dark that you can't see through it.

Busy spring so far but it seems to be slowing down some now that sugaring is over.  It's raining today so I'll try and get a walk in between the drops :) Trying to walk 30 days in a row can be a bit challenging and the few days I've missed I make it up with extra minutes on another day.  So far it's been a fun challenge.

Population in 2014 was 13 people year round and 15 people seasonally and in 2019 the population was 14.

The Jersey Lilly went up for sale in 2019.  When we were there the Jersey Lilly was the only business in this small town, so in we went and ordered a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.  Talking to the waitress we discovered she was the owner, and talking more with her we found out that she was from Wisconsin as well. 

I'm not sure what it's like there in Ingomor Montana now, but I'd sure like to go back and find out.

We woke up to snow covering our world.  I had started a post from photos I had taken oh so long ago that I have yet to post, I had planned to post them just never did.  So, I will be digging into the archives of my photos and post them all eventually.  It's going to take a while to do that, because the first post I plan to do, the photos are from 2014.  Wowzer, all on hard drive thank goodness, as I have replaced my computer/laptop a few times.

Sugaring is still going on, and we are still making syrup.  Each year our system changes as to how we collect, boil, draw off the syrup, bottle and the clean up.  Who would have thought that after 13 years of cooking syrup there would be room for change, but yet there is always room for improvement.

I'll leave you with some snowy photos from this morning and get to working on the next post from our travels.

The first batch of syrup for the season is bottled.  It seems like we got a later start this season, but the syrup looks pretty good, it's not often we get the golden mild flavor.

Miss Suuvi loves it outdoors and the snow.  Not really sure what she's looking or listening for, only she knows.  I tried being sneaky taking her photo, but of course her hearing is pretty sharp, and she turned around to head my way. 

We got another snowstorm on Thursday, and it snowed another 3 inches last night.  Maybe this will be our sugar snow.

Sugaring season is going to be so different this year.  We did not hang the buckets we usually use; we went with plastic bags this year.  Jim says it's so much easier emptying the bags.  Our dog Suuvi does good out in the sugar bush and follows the UTV around, it seems like when it stops, she stops and when it goes, she goes, she will meander away but so far really hasn't ventured too far. We missed having a dog come out and sugar with us and despite her small quirk I talked about in a previous post, she does very well. 

It's nice having a four-legged companion again.