Now that the weather is getting nicer I've been trying to get out and walk.  I walked everyday while we were in Texas and I've missed it a lot.  Mr. has been cutting up a tree for one of our neighbors that had fallen during a storm on to the field where his crops will be planted, it's about a mile walk to where the tree had fallen.  So I took a walk with Sadie to where Mr. was and before heading back home Mr. told me about an old road that used to go back to where we were.  You can see the old road bed and how it has grown in.

These shots were taken with my cell phone and the first shot is looking one way down the old road.

I turned around and took this shot and they look totally different.  You'd think they were taken at different times.

This old road bed was really neat despite it being so grown in.  I can only imagine what it was like back in the day when it was used.  Not far from where we were there used to be a school, only there is nothing left of it, not even a foundation stone.  There aren't too many homes around us now and I can only imagine what life was like here when the old road was in use and the school was open.

At the beginning of March we had the local 4-H boosters over to tour our small sugar bush operation. Our son and dil and the grands were here to help with sugaring as they do every year and were so kind to stay and help when the 4-H club was here. 

We showed them how we did everything from tapping the trees and they could try tapping if they wanted and some did.  They all went down into the sugar bush to gather sap and came back to see how the boiling process went.  Our son manned the boil so Mr. could be with the 4-H group.  We showed them everything, all the way to the bottling of the syrup.  Unfortunately I didn't have Mr. take photos of us bottling, nor did I head into the bush to take photos of them gathering, I was manning the boiling inside the house. 

The kids and adults seemed to have enjoyed it and they all went home with a sample bottle of syrup and some spiles if they wanted to try tapping some trees at home.

Going back to posting photos of our trip to our daughters wedding back in 2015.  We were driving somewhere out in Montana and came upon what looked like a home that had been dug into the side of a hill.  Though we were pressed for time it would have been neat to stop and get out for a closer look.

After getting back from Texas we went looking for some more sap buckets and found some that an Amish man was selling for a cheap price.  Seems like most people and now the Amish are doing away with sap buckets and going to tubing.  Anyway, after getting the buckets we drove through the hills on our way home and found this old place.  We couldn't quite tell if was actually lived in, it almost looked abandoned but then you can see the decorations on the fence.  This old log home was awesome, the corners of the logs were dovetailed and just simply beautiful.  This was back in February and there was snow on the ground in the valleys and on the ridges.

Then it started to warm up.  It seems like the sugaring season is backwards, usually we get the darker syrup at the end of the season when the weather starts to get warmer, but we had the warmer temps in the middle of the season so when we gathered the sap from the buckets the sap was warm.  Now, the temps are more like when it's the beginning of the season with the temps being absolutely perfect.  And, we gathered over 150 gallons of sap on Sunday so there will be more boiling this week.  We made this past weekend 3.625 gallons of what we call golden amber delicious syrup.  The two boils before this we got darker syrup which is fine I use it for cooking/baking and now to make maple sugar.

We got what we call a sugar snow that froze and reset the sap run again.  We are definitely not done with sugaring and it all started with a snowstorm.

The weather has changed a few times.  No calves born yet, at least not live ones, our neighbor had a calf born too early and it didn't make it, that was sad to hear.  Even though they are not our cattle we see them pretty much everyday and we have gotten kind of attached to them.

Can you believe we are still making syrup?  The sap is still running, slowly but still running.  The 4H group came and had a wonderful time, I'll try and do a post about that.

I've been wanting to make maple sugar since we starting making maple syrup.  So when our son and dil and the grands came we made some.  I thought I'd give the maple sugar a try and looked for a maple cake recipe and Martha Stewart had a maple cake recipe on her blog.

I like a bit of cake with my whip cream :)  Instead of frosting this cake I thought I would put whip cream on it...YUM!

I don't know about you but I'm ready to see some flowers blooming again.