Spring? Not So Fast

It was just this morning that a lot of the pictures you see were of a brown color. In other words we were losing the snow cover.
But mid morning it started to snow again, the heart attack type of snow, and has kept it up all day so far. The forecast is for us to end up with between 5 and 7 inches of snow by Tuesday morning.






I think this snow will have to go away by solar power as I am tired of plowing or shoveling it. We are suppose to be in the 50's by the weekend - let's hope so.

Spring Must Be Here

Roses Are Red
Violets Are Purple
Sugar Is Sweet
And So Is Maple Syruple

So, it is the time of the year when the maple trees have their sugary sap going up the tree to get started growing for another year.

My neighbor and his brother still tap trees and boil the sap down to syrup out in the woods. Here they work in the wide open spaces, no tents, or shacks for these guys.


Here the sap is collected and brought to the "camp" waiting to get boiled. It takes about 42 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.











The boiling process is a two step process. The raw sap is poured into one pan and boiled so a lot of the water is gone before it is sent to the finishing pan.










This is the finishing pan just prior to a pour off of the pure maple syrup.












The final product from all the boiling of sap. The syrup goes from here to a filtering system before being put into 5 gallon buckets. From there it will be filtered again just before being bottled.

I had a chance to sample the finished syrup while it was still hot. I will tell you that there is no taste like it and that taste changes shortly after the syrup cools down..

Those Poor Trees

Remember the tree story and how I would not like to be a tree.
Well, if they survive the bugs, birds, weather and disease, there is still one more enemy to contend with.



And Then Along Came Jones



Sorry trees. These are part of the 11 trees that were knocked down due to storms last summer. They will eventually end up keeping Jonesie warm during the winter of 09/10. All of the wood I cut this spring will not be used for another 1 1/2 years. Hopefully it will be nice and dry by then.
As you can see below, I still split the wood the old fashion way - by hand. I haven't gotten around to buying a log splitter because I still like the exercise I get from splitting by hand.

Spring? Not so Fast

We thought that we were getting into spring when mother nature gave us the stop sign this morning.

We woke up to about 4" of heart attack snow. This time of the year when it does snow it is very wet and heavy.

I spent about 1/12 hours on space management around the garage and driveway.

Anyway it isn't spring, yet the temperature indicates it is not winter. It's not spring, it's not winter - I must be in the Twilight Zone.

Look Out For The Birdie

As you can see, a tree's life is not very pleasant. From birds to beavers and then throw in the dreaded bugs and weevils not to mention all of the weather related issues, they have a tough life. And the only real defense is camouflage, try to look like every other tree in the forest and try not to bring any unwanted attention to yourself.
Well here is one tree that could not escape the pileated woodpecker. I can't imagine that it was looking for food. I think the woodpecker just had a mean streak in it and took it out on this poor unsuspecting tree.
After seeing this tree in the woods, I am glad I am not a tree.
Spring is getting closer as the temperature is starting to warm up a little. It is now time to make maple syrup in Wisconsin. Some people have the buckets on the trees and the weather forecast is going to be perfect for the sap to run for the next week or hopefully longer. I myself would like to participate in the annual spring ritual, but it takes time. That is time at home each night and on the weekends. Maybe someday I will be home for a couple of weeks so I can tap some trees.
Oh, there we are again back to abusing trees. Now we have to add another unpleasant element to the life of a tree - draining the life sap out of the tree. It isn't enough that the tree has to look out for all of the above mentioned methods of attack, now it has to look out for the dreaded sap season. Boy, I'm really glad the I am not a tree.

A Challenge Has Been Made

Jonesie has received a challenge from Martha to run a half marathon. It is called the Gopher to Badger Run. I don't know anything about it but Martha knows that I am a sucker for anything that has Badger in the name. Hell, if they had " The Buckey Badger Death March " I would probably be first in line to sign up for it.

I don't know if I can run 14 miles but I do know that I could drink a bit of Leinies while I watch other people do it.

It is a nice incentive to keep off the smokes and my goal of walking downtown for pancakes has been met so we will have to see if I am up to it.

I has been 68 days of not smoking.

I Have Escaped the Tundra

Now that I have left the cold tundra I find it easier to stay on line for more than 10 minutes at a time.

As you can or can't see in the picture, there isn't much up here. There are no trees, bushes, shrubs, nothing. At this time of the year all that is there is snow, a few dumb caribou and some Artic Fox around.

The job went well, or else I wouldn't be in Anchorage tonight. My contact told me that some people in management would like to see me in camp for the next 365 days. I told him my company would like that also, but I may have an opinion on that subject.
The BP Milne Point camp was quite nice except that the desert tray was always open. It takes a quite a bit of willpower to stay away from the kitchen.
You know when you go to some restaurant's and they have the desert case that is behind glass and spins? Well they have one of those that is always full of pies and cakes and it goes round and round 24 hours a day and is always calling out my name as I try to pass it. It must be a marketing thing because you can only pass that devil machine so many times until it corrals you into it's clutches. Then it is over and the cookie case, right next to the devil machine, does not have the pulling power it use to have.





This is the real picture of the tundra. I took this out of my window as it is to cold to venture outside. This was one of those -40 degree days.

The pipes that are in the foreground of the picture carry the oil from the fields to the Aleyska Pipeline, down to Valdez and eventually into your car.

Just when you think it couldn't get worse

I have to make this quick as we lose the internet very fast and often.

The reason is below.

I have pictures of the tundra but have little chance of getting them on the blog up here.

The reason we don't have very good internet service is because yesterday it was -49 and the wind chill was -77. Today it has warmed up to -44 and I don't know what the wind chill is. I just didn't want to get out of bed at 4:45 this morning. The weather is certainly not some thing to look foreword to.

Will post pictures when I get back to civilization.