Spring, Sugaring, Friday, Mom, Weekend, Peeps

[helwen]

Cold but sunny out, today. Been enjoying reading about the signs of spring in other folks' posts. No buds here, but the sap was running this week (and once the Maples bud, sugaring season is definitely over!). Various little birds create quite the racket in the morning, and in the evening on Wednesday, L heard a great horned owl. Sometime earlier this week we went up on the hill to take some photos for the sugarhouse website (which I still have to tweak and send), and heard one of the local hawks too. Chipmunks are coming out of hibernation, and a couple of days ago I saw a bird with nesting material -- he'd landed briefly on the roof outside the east-facing kitchen window.

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Over 100 gallons of syrup, so far. We are still producing Light. Marian is happy, as that's what she needs for making candy, cream, and powdered sugar. We'll need around 40 gallons of that just for Ashfield Fall Festival! Some of the fresh syrup has been getting shipped out too -- it's that time of year :)

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Today is more cleaning, more moving stuff, just like all week. We took a big pile of ours and the parents' stuff to the transfer point for re-using/recycling/trash yesterday. I cut out a green tabard this week, which I still have to hem -- hopefully today. Need to check supplies/materials for Sunday too. This evening we'll be delivering some eggs, mailing stuff to Canada, and returning some things to friends at Needleworkers.

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Got email from my brother Kent this morning (he'd lost my phone #), that our mom is in ICU. She went in last night, complaining of chest pains. She'll be under observation at least until Saturday. He's going to call her again sometime today to see how she's doing. I expect they're running some tests too, to see what's up, and what treatment may be needed. I was going to work on scheduling for the end-of-May trip, buying tickets, but will wait until after Saturday now.

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Saturday is more cleaning and prep. Some friends will be coming over at some point in the day to help with moving a few things, and helping with cleaning. Yay!

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Sunday is Alban Eiler/Eostre/Easter/Vernal Equinox. We'll be celebrating down at the Sunwheel in Amherst, MA, at 10 a.m. Visitors are welcome!

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We were so busy yesterday we didn't sacrifice a peep, so that will happen today. Must not forget to do the peep sacrifice.... yes, it's silly, but the one year we didn't....

Comments

[dcis-warrior.livejournal.com]

things going well here. i aded more posts to the origionalif you want to check in.

what is maple cream? sounds yummy. sugar can be too sweet so it is a tiny treasure to be savored.

[dcis-warrior.livejournal.com]

there are many reasons for chest pain. i will keep your family in my thouhts and prayers. good luck.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

She has had a couple of mini-TIAs in the past couple of years, and can stress more easily these days than she used to. I'm glad she went in; fortunately so far in her life she has been good about making sure she has people who can help her in emergencies, who live near her. The nearest of my brothers (and the only one of the two who has a car) lives around 45 minutes away. He's the one who let us know what's happening.

I'll be giving her a short call tomorrow sometime, since I didn't get her number until tonight.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Okay.

Maple cream is maple syrup that has been heated to a specific temperature (I don't remember it at the moment), then the pot the syrup is in is either taken and set into a snowbank, if there is enough snow, to cool to 180F (I think). If there isn't snow, then it is set in the sink, and you put a cover and weight on it, and then run cold water in the sink until it reaches the correct temperature. It is important that the pot stays as motionless as possible during the cooling, so that you don't get crystals (they make the finished product grainy).

Once it has reached the correct temp, it's poured into a big mixer, which turns and makes the syrup thicker, until at some point it becomes opaque and creamy. You have to check on it now and then, because one time a few years back we got distracted with our other jobs around the kitchen and it got stirred too much, and became powdered sugar. We can sell that too, but we still needed the cream, so we had to do it all again.... and we had a LOT of powdered sugar that spring!

Maple cream is usually used as a spread on toast, english muffins, bagels, and fried dough. It's sweet, but a different kind of sweet than the syrup.

Maple syrup is sweeter per portion than cane sugar, so you don't need as much of it to create the same amount of sweetness. Some diabetics by the powdered sugar to use instead of cane sugar because of this. It is still a real sugar, but they can get the same sweetness for less amount, so not as much affect on them.

Another difference between those two sugars is that cane sugar can be flossed to make cotton candy, but maple sugar doesn't floss. So when we make cotton candy at the festival in October, it is 10 parts cane to one part maple.

As for me, I like the maple and honey too, because they don't seem to cause a sugar crash the way cane often does. I don't know why that is though.

I think you might like the cream; it is sweet, but it doesn't seem as sweet as the candy... maybe because it's on something else, so that helps to cut the sweet.

[oakmouse]

Hope your mom is ok!

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I'll be trying to call her sometime tomorrow; my brother got me the phone number to call.