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At three pm yesterday we finally got 10 16 liter buckets worth of sap into the evaporator pan to start boiling for Maple Syrup. No chance at a tan as the sun was dipping into the tree tops when it finally got started for real. We’ve waited all week for this, but unfortunately we can’t stick around to help now that it has actually started. Too bad. It was the whole reason we came over here in the first place. But with multiple days of rain ahead, no point running an outdoor evaporator. Can’t outpace potential torrential downpours. You’d add needless hours to your boiling with the incursion of rain water into the boiling pan. Not to mention trying to keep the fuel dry enough to burn without having to erect tents, lean tos or tarps which would inevitably trap smoke too. Shame really. This is one of my favourite times of tear to stir up ice chunks, boil sap, cart wood around, split logs, and be outdoors with no bugs & limited sun exposure. Maybe next year we will be more organized.

But know this, if I’m running the program for you we are running the sap deep, and the fires as an inferno! Hot & deep. Helps to freeze off water from the sap buckets over night before you start. A reverse osmosis machine can also knock a number of hours off of your boiling time too, by separating out the sap from much of the water. Less fuel used, and shorter boiling times equals better business practices.

When you think about how it takes forty liters of sap to give you one liter of syrup you can get a sense of just how long it can take to boil all that down to a useable syrup. And we started with 160 liters of sap as an opener for starting the fire, and prepping the evaporator pan. It’s not a small operation here, but we are by no means large. If we were smart we’d vacuum pull the sap directly from the trees, via tubing lines, and strain it, filter it, drain it into a giant holding tank that the bobcat could maneuver around, and just open a tap to flow across a much larger evaporator pan, that was wound with copper wire to heat up water for washing & cleaning our set-up while we were at it. But I digress. Not my show. Also a partially sheltered concrete pad to work off of, and storage bins for fuel near by would be a plus. Pressurised warm/hot water would help for late stage clean ups wouldn’t hurt either. I’m too pragmatic for my own good.

I’d also build a wider evaporator pan, with a longer drainage spigot, and some metal filters that I could slide in, pull out when draining the pan. Wider doors for shoveling in the fuel, and cleaning out the ash/charcoal afterwards too. But I tend towards day dreaming alot, so what do I know. Have a nice weekend at the tail end of March Break. Ciao Bella!

Obstacles and things such as life got in the way of the sapping operation, so we opted to skate more often, and use the hot tub cold plunge combo. That was truly pulse racing! Not a fan of being icy cold up to my shoulders, no thanks. Tried it twice, hated it both times. Love the 100°F hot tub though, that I could do more of any day of the week. The kids went for several sleigh rides behind a snowmobile, which was a lot of fun for them I’m sure. They also went out to tap trees, knock in the spials, add buckets, and affix the hoses needed for collection. We pulled the evaporator out of the show, cleaned it off, leveled it, and got a fire going in it to help clean it off.

Now the operation needs to begin in earnest otherwise we should gather up our things and call it a day. Lots to be done elsewhere, or for other things around the house. I did manage to send 1/3 of my cut off pile north, so that’s great. Not the whole load like I had hoped for, but some is always better than none. Which means I once again need to look into how I can dispose of it myself. Or dump it at the farm for the burn barrel there. I’d run it 24/7 if I could to eliminate all of my cut offs, and scrap wood junk that I have accumulated over the years.

In other news we saw the Leafs lose to the Florida Panthers in a 3-2 regulation time loss. That sucked. But atleast it was over before 10pm. Ha.

The ice won’t wait forever, so we have to duck out to the rink to skate asap or else we will lose the chance to skate again (outdoors) this year. Time to lug all their gear down to the rink and wrestle them into their skates & helmets. Find all the loose pucks, and find a selection of childrens sticks while I’m at it. Gotta hurry though or else it will all turn to mushy slush and the kids won’t be going anywhere on ice.

And I cannot overstate this enough — pfft! I do not care for the time switch at all. This week is a real Jimmie and I’m still surprised when I read the clock to discover what time of day it is at any point. It’s like het lag, but without the exuberance of international travel, or the once fun jet setting hopping airport lounges, and eating/drinking at all hours of the say. Less fun, same out of body fatigue. Zero stars, do not reccomend. Dog hates it too.

I somehow hurt my left shoulder yesterday without realizing it, because it gave me grief all night long. The kids and I took turns trying out their uncles cold plunge pool. I tried twice and hot down to my arm pits once and stopped, but the kids tried again, and again, and again, eventually submerging themselves for 20 seconds or so before jumping back into the hot tub. I’m lead to believe that it is a more pleasant experience if you do it from the sauna instead. But we had the hot tub fired up, so we went from there instead. It6certainly cold. Not my forté by any means. I hate the cold. Despise it actually. Not that I like the outside temperatures being in the 90’s or higher either.

If my calculations are correct today is Wednesday. This will be the coldest day this week before it climbs back up towards double digits, sunshine, and then finally rain. I’m going to need to take the shovel around the house once more to make room for the rains to glow out onto the grass unimpeded. I want it all to run off, not flow back towards the house, or pool near the foundation. Home ownership is fun! At least now the eaves troughs are stuffed right full of ice! That has got to count for something, right?

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day on Monday, so green beers for everyone. I know what I’ll be doing! Watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia that’s what. I don’t drink all that much. I had two gigantic beers at the Leafs game on the third, which had my wobbly in the knees. And I drank a Twisted Tea in the hot tub yesterday evening (which tasted far better than its US counterparts I had in the Florida Keys only a short while ago). And that’s it. That almost entirely encapsulates what I’ve had to “drink” in 2025. More than normal for me, but not even enough to fill an 8 pack of tall cans. Rookie numbers I don’t care to pump up.

Let us see where/how this sapping operation takes us today. Happy Hump Day! Ciao Bella.

Weather up into nearly double digits on the plus side of the Celcious scale makes skiing a tad difficult. Glad we are doing something different that isn’t entirely reliant on the snow for our enjoyment. I’m holding reduced office hours this week so that I can play with my kids while they are still small enough to want to. Took a shovel outside to dig out trenches in the waist deep snow for them, and to bolster the sledding hill off the side of the driveway. It’s all very, very wet and also icy somehow. If it’s not slush, it’s fast!

I figure we could cross country ski fairly easily for atleast another few says if we wanted to, but going downhill skiing seems like a lost cause, atleast as far south as Stouffville is. My guess is people had to head north to Collingwood, or even farther to Quebec to get good snow and cooler temps. Considering we are supposed to get up to 13°C with pouring rain I’m glad we didn’t book any type of ski trip. Luck of the draw I guess. I do miss skiing, downhill or otherwise. Put the equipment on the list! A next year purchase maybe? Although I bet all that stuff will go on sale as stores move onto spring & summer related offerings.

Happy Tuesday, I think.

These tunes take me back to high school and Emmy first year at college. Not neccesarily dance music from the club scene, but rather ubiqitous music from every store, event, or location you can think of. A trip down memory lane, whether you like it or not.

While it will be lovely to still see the sun by seven o’clock this evening, the hour shift has me feeling a little out of sorts today. I can only imagine the havoc tomorrow morning when folks have to get up and go to work with one fewer hour of sleep. Add in the darkness, and then the first morning sun light glare on the roads as we are slowly starting to peak into thawing temperatures as the sun light grows stronger. Yeesh. Going to be an ugly few days. Thank the lord for March Break and a reason to slightly reduce hours and play with my kids when they are home, and available 24/7.  Climbing has been suspended for the week, and Taekwondo is running day camp hours, and Girl Guides is closed, so that leaves us ample time to watch movies, eat meals together, try to tap some maple trees, and generally get on each others nerves as quickly as possible. Ha.

Walking at the farm might need to be put on hold as the mud, and general presence of a gloppy mess is too much to subject our vehicles to at this point. I think some more local neighbourhood walks on a leash will fit the ticket for a short while atleast. Or until I can figure out how to transport the dog in a bubble that stops the car interiors from getting absolutely covered in grim. Towels and blankets don’t seem to do as well as I had hoped. A secondary crate for the van might work if I wanted to drop $200 on something we will rarely use. Sure, fine, awesome. No, I think the better option is to just walk the side walks and side streets more locally and let him sniff about, and not care so much about the step count as it were. Quality time together over quantity of steps taken. Could be a nice change up.

It’s already March 9th, and it will be St Patrick’s Day before you know it. The kids have eye doctor appointments that morning. We will be into April before you even know it. Wild! I have several nephews, and one niece with birthdays this month too. Late in the month, in a flurry of activity bam, bam, bam one after the other. One whom will be 19, another turning 18, and the youngest will be 11. My how time flies!

Plus the 1 hour we lost last night tipping directly from 1:59am to 3:00am in the blink of an eye. Lost time,  that’s a serious condition. Feel bad for anyone with a flight today. Hope you all remembered the clocks changing when booking your travel plans!

Boy how the mighty have fallen off now huh. All I see are ads and very little organic engagement on Linked In these days. Sell sell sell me something, like a course, webinar, seminar or book. It’s paid ads and grift. Not the place I would go to look for work anymore. I’m not entirely sure where I would turn to now anyway, but it sure isn’t Linked In.

I got off of X about a month ago, and I might give up on more social media sites as the year wears on. I can’t recall the last positive interaction that I’ve had with Linked In, so it might be time to leave. Perhaps not right this minute but the transition away from the site will happen. Will some other entity pop up as THE place to go to look for real jobs that companies are ACTUALLY hiring for? I don’t know. Seems like the jobs market has been in a real trough for a number of years now. Fun.

But on another note, here we are on a cold and snowy Saturday morning. Funny how true words were not written down by me than the off the cuff remarks about a lone email changing the course of your day, week, month, or whatever. Funny how life works eh? On the plus side I got that report off my desk in record time, and have the week free from it thanks, in part, to the March Break going live as of 3:00pm Friday afternoon. No shortage of folks jumping at the starting gun to run off and enjoy some sun, sand, and warmth elsewhere. Or maybe your kink is a hut on a lake for ice fishing, or a snowmobile, or cross country and down hill skiing. Who knows what you all have in store for the March Break. I hope it is something you like, and will enjoy.

The clocks move forward at 2:00am tonight skipping directly over to 3:00am, so let us all pray for a quiet morning and an easy transition to those bright and sunny evenings we grow to be so fond of. Nolonger will the sun set before 7pm from here until the fall! Yay. Waking up back in the dark for a bit is going to suck for a while. Same with that bright easterly sun rise on the commute in to work. Beware of the glare!

And on that bombshell I will bid you adieu. Bon voyage! Take care, be safe, and come home safely. Ciao Bella.

I do hope that traffic isn’t a nightmare when trying to go just about anywhere next week. All of the parks, and things will be jam packed with day campers, and lost souls alike. Trying to get a group together to do anything fun indoors, or outdoors will be a herculean task over the next nine days. If you didn’t schedule it before, it probably won’t happen. Just saying.

Next week my wife and I will have reversed roles, where I will be working and she will be off. So atleast the kids will be partially supervised for 99% of the time. They are a little bit older now and don’t require 100% supervision to not die. Now it’s more like 85-90%, unless they get into Minecraft and then they just sink into the couch with the game for an hour at a time. Unless they ask for a beverage they aren’t going to need much of anything at that point. Far simpler than kids under five. Atleast for brief spurts.

I’m so sick of the snow it would have been amazing to head back out to sandy beaches and sun shine. But not this time. We got out ahead of the surge pricing on flights, rentals, and hotels etc by going mid February instead. Which was super fun, but now that there is still so much winter left to go I’d rather be swimming under the warm sun – again.

I have yet another full day to go in order to wrap up my latest report, so I best be about my business shortly. I will say this, isn’t it funny how life imitates art, imitates life again. Full circle. Funny that.

Spent this snowy, blowey morning walking the dog, and grocery shopping expecting a quiet end to a mostly quiet week when BAM! new big report comes in. I knew it was on the horizon so not entirely unexpected, or from out of the blue, but it did add a whole lot to what was essentially an empty day. Now I’ve got charts, tables, graphs, and photo sets to pour over like a madman. Nice. Work in means invoices out! Happy Thursday.

Tried out the new glasses for an hour or two before they made me feel queasy. Slow steps. Did make things clear though, won’t lie about that. Just that the peripheral vision had an orange peel wobble to it that  turned my stomach. Fun times.