Have I mentioned that we live in Lanark Highlands, the maple syrup capital of Ontario? And just down the road from us, about 5 minutes in the car, is Fortune Farms , a fun place to visit at this time of year for sure! And given that we're hardly set up to make enough of our own syrup to last us all year long, also a great place to stock up syrup for the year - and maple butter and maple candies, yum!

Last week we stopped by for a visit, and got quite a few fun ideas for a set-up for next year when we have more time, money and energy - I definitely understand why people would invest in high-tech gear, but there's just something so romantic about the kettles hanging over a fire:-) And, of course, the kids enjoyed making maple syrup taffy on the snow!

Does my heart good:-)

One thing that we've been thoroughly enjoying this transitional period of spring is tapping a few of our trees here on the property, and harvesting the bounty! When we decided to move out to Ontario, one of the things I was most excited about was the prospect of being able to tap for maple syrup. There's just something so quintessentially Canadian about it, and for a west-coaster, I've read about it for years and it seems such a romantic notion. And although it's definitely a lot of work to boil that sugar water down (40 to 1 ratio!!!!!), I continue to love partaking in this age-old tradition.





We debated for a while the best way to boil down the sap, especially during this year of transition and little money that is not invested directly into finishing up the house. Perhaps next year we'll invest in actual equipment (or the year after) but for now, it was important that we rig up an operation that cost as little as possible. There's no way we could do it on our stove inside - far too much sticky moisture in the house, not to mention the high cost of electricity. A turkey frier, essentially a large burner on a stand that is hooked up to a propane tank, would be the easiest and could be placed outside our door, but it costs almost $100 with a big pot to fit on, AND tanks of propane are costly too. Our wood stove in the yurt wouldn't fit a pot, and so in the end we decided we had to figure out a way to use the fire. We have lots of stones around the property, and some cement bricks. Then when Jamie did a dump run in the morning (we have to drive our garbage and recycling there as we live on an unserviced road - though it's only a 5 minute drive away), he salvaged racks from old ovens, and found steel bars, so he created a shelf for the pots!

We brought the sugar water to a boil, and then to prevent it from boiling over, we'd just add more sugar water. Pretty soon we figured out how much to put in so that it would boil comfortably without boiling over, a tricky balance at times.

Of course, having a fire going all day long requires A LOT of wood. Something we have an abundance of, for sure, and luckily chopping wood is still a novelty and therefore something we all enjoy. Kea grabbed our camera for a chunk of this day, so many of the photos on this post are hers (which explains the inclusion of photos of me:-) )

And this is a shot of the fire set-up by the end of the day:-) Obviously we made a few alterations for the next time, including lowering the set up so we needed less fire, and using sturdier pieces of steel underneath the racks so the post weren't constantly sliding into the fire. But, we did end up with really dark liquid in the end, which was the goal:-) With a very smoky flavour, yum. At this point we've put those jars in our fridge, and we'll have to do the finicky last 30-60 minutes either on a borrowed turkey frier or inside on our stove. Jamie ruined our first batch by walking away for TWO minutes at the end (and by ruined, I mean it's crystalized so can't be used as syrup, but it sure is yummy and perfect for baking or candy-making!), so we now know what everyone means when they say over and over again, "YOU REALLY NEED TO KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON IT AT THE END!)

And finally, a photo of some of my favourite trees, at the end of winter/beginning of spring. These are the trees that I stare up at from my hammock spot, from the chairs by the fire pit, from the area around the yurt. It's so neat to get to know this piece of land we own, and to see it change throughout the seasons!

And so there's one glimpse of how we're enjoying this transitional season!

Spring is creeping along

I have to admit, I'm not loving the shoulder season this year - the snow is far to mucky and gross to ski in, yet we can't quite do anything else we want outside as it's all so wet, covered in snow and not to mention, still frozen. So I've been trying to train my eye to see the 'beauty' in the shift from winter to spring, and taking photos of what I see.

Here's a sampling of what I've been seeing, the first three being in the city where hidden treasures (or trampled prayer flags) are being unearthed and the snow mixes with mud to make pretty browns. Then there's a photo of Tiegan and Ryland, not at all dampened by the weather - when it's grey and gross, that's just a great excuse to brighten the day with bright umbrella's!

And finally, when the sun is shining, we start getting a better glimpse of the spring to come, and we all start to feel energized. And although it's still a bit frustrating to not be able to do so many of the things we're chomping at the bit to do, we're kept rather busy with the liquid gold this seasonal shift provides us with!!!! Somehow the sweet taste of maple syrup will carry us through to the end of the month..... And maybe by then, I will be more inspired to do more than just read and knit. I miss writing and crafting and hiking and exploring and feeling energized. Soon, I can feel it......

Happy Spring!

Just a quick note to say we're still here! Doing well, and looking forward to having spring arrive once and for all. We had an amazing taste of it this weekend, with warm, sunny days, lots of fresh air to run around in - spent time boiling down sugar water from our maple trees, visiting local maple syrup productions, clearing wood and cleaning up the yard a bit with the snow melt. We started to feel really excited about the arrival of spring, and ready to move on from winter weather.

And then we woke up yesterday morning to a huge dump of snow, gah!!!! What could we do, but take one last cross-country ski adventure, which we did in the morning, but now we're doing our full-on sun dance and really hoping for the return of spring-like weather!!!!!!

I'll leave you with a couple of photos Jamie snapped out our kitchen window yesterday - these funny birds often come up to say hello and traipse by our house. Their necks bobbing, wings flapping, what odd looking turkeys:-)

Pirate Party

Ryland had been talking about doing a space-themed birthday party for weeks, but at the last minute decided to switch it to a pirate party - which was fine with us, as we had a lot of fun putting together a pirate themed morning for him and a couple of friends. Unfortunately we had a huge snowstorm the night before, so a couple of the little boys couldn't make it, but we were able to save a bit of the booty for them.

We had a bunch of cardboard from various appliance purchases, so we converted the hallway into a bit of a ship. The idea was that the kids crawled through the porthole, and became stow-aways. They were discovered by Jamie, the head pirate, who put them through a series of tests before they reached the treasure chest. They had to learn to swab the deck, walk off the plank with dignity, grab apple rings with hook hands, do the peg-leg hop, show off their navigational skills with a patch on their eye (with flags thrown onto a treasure map), practice their fishing skills and learn some new pirate words. Then inside the trunk, there were their new pirate hats, their new pirate names and balloon swords - which they then used to get bubbles! Lots of fun, though Jamie got so much into character that he found his throat was sore all afternoon after speaking like a pirate for an hour or two!!!!!!

Oh, and check out the lucky thrift store t-shirt we found days before the big party - "R matey"!!!!!!!

Slime bath

I thought I would include a couple of photos of our adventures with a product called H2Goo. Ryland had seen the package in our local bookstore weeks before his birthday, and had been mentioning every since that he would REALLY love to get some for his birthday. Since it was the ONLY thing he asked for, I figured the least I could do was spend the $10. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work as well in our hard water, as even though we only filled the tub 1/4 full, the powder still didn't turn the water into the jello-like substance that was shown on the box. Instead, it turned the water into a really slimy, grainy goo.......an experience all in itself!!! I think this summer I might try buying a bunch of jello and try the project again in a small pool, but this experience was a bit of a flop. Ryland sat in it for a bit, then said, "When I saw the box, I thought it would be really cool, but actually, it's just really gross"!!!! Okay, then, there's our review!!!!!!

Ryland's 4th Birthday

It was nice to have J and S here to celebrate Ryland's 4th birthday on the 24th, I think he felt sufficiently spoiled and celebrated!!!! The girls made him the polar bear and also a pirate patch for his eye, he opened up a few small gifts from us and he enjoyed eating chocolate cupcakes with lollipops after dinner! I just love watching his expressions as everyone sings happy birthday to him, he gets so shy when so much attention is paid to him but at the same time he so obviously delights in it!

I can't believe how big he is getting, as I imagine I say with every one of my child's birthdays. As he turns four, it is neat to see his bright face and realize what an absolute joy he is to have in the family. He always has a song in his heart, and can often be heard humming or singing as he quietly plays. He is very active, and can be rough but I realize how seldom we actually deal with him hitting or pushing these days, so obviously some social rules are sinking in over time! He is super compassionate, and is often the one to give in and compromise when there is conflict with Tiegan and tries to make things right when a child is crying.

He is also always trying to figure out all of these strict gender roles our society seems to have, which seem so much stricter for young boys than girls. Although I would classify him as 'all-boy' in many ways with his love of sports, knights, fighting, wrestling and his bursts of aggression, he has also declared purple and pink as his favourite colours (I thought I would escape this preschool obsession with my third child, but it turns out no!), and he gets very excited when Tiegan outgrows dresses as he can't wait to wear them. In fact, most nights he opts to wear this horse nighty of Tiegan's, and he LOVES barrettes and nail polish and glitter. Can't say I blame him, they are a lot of fun, but my heart breaks at how cruel others can be about his perceived 'gender-bending'. I just hope that he figures out a way to stay true to his heart, as he's such a neat kid to hang out with! xo

Playing tourist.......

We did spend a couple of days touring J and S through some of our favourite spots in the city. It's a totally different feel, touring the city in the frigid winter as opposed to in the stinkin' heat of the summer, and it just meant that we gave the condensed tour of the major sites from the comforts of our van, and then spent a few hours inside a couple of museums! I was thankful for the bus tour I had taken with the Sangha's, so I was able to share a few facts on our drive-by tour, and I'll look forward to some warmer weather visits so I can continue to explore this new home of ours!

First stop was the Museum of Civilization - a place that we've taken our kids to every single time we traveled to Ottawa from their births! I think this is an amazing museum, and although every single trip we spend time in the amazing Children's Museum, we also enjoy the many other exhibits. Usually our goal is to see two different areas, and this day we went through the Canada Hall (history of Canada through interactive exhibits) and then spent some time in the Children's Museum. We never tire of exploring this museum, and always seem to learn something new! And it's just plain fun....

On our second day of museum-visiting, we decided to hang out in the newly-renovated Museum of Nature. I find it ironic that although the museum made some amazing changes to its building, and have a few new exhibits with a lot of hands-on interaction, the kids ALWAYS migrate back to the bird floor and spend the majority of their time on this floor. There's something so fascinating about seeing all of the birds, there's a great bird recovery hospital that the kids can play in, and then all sorts of computer games and activities to explore. Luckily J and S are as much bird nerds as we are, so it was a good fit!!!!