An Outing At Last

Last weekend, I finally felt like I could get around well enough to venture out to Malabar Farm for the Maple Sugar Festival. We actually arrived very late this year, about an hour before closing. Fortunately, this meant that we could park very close to the wagon pick-up, so I did not have to hobble far through the mud in my walking boot.


The weather was perfect, warm and sunny, with lovely clouds scattered through a blue spring sky. We admired the rural countryside as we rode the horse-drawn wagons into the maple sugar area.


Ben especially enjoyed the ride:


Once we disembarked from the wagon, we walked along the path, where volunteers demonstrated the different ways people in this region used maple sugar throughout history, beginning with the Native Americans.


The kids enjoyed smelling the sweet aroma of the steam emanating from the log trough.


At the next stop, the early settlers had just finished making some maple sugar. The woman carefully cleaned the pot to boil down a new batch of syrup.


The man explained how they created maple sugar by heating the syrup to a "hard ball" stage and then cooling it across a clean, shallow log trough until it formed sugar.


He gave each guest a sample of the fresh sugar. Becca carefully studied hers before happily licking it off of her hand.


Finally, we walked over to the "Sugar Shack" where they still produce maple syrup today. The kids enjoyed hearing about the process and tasting a tiny sample of fresh syrup.


I am excited to finally do more field trips like this again. Honestly, I am glad that I broke my leg in the winter, when the snow and ice would have kept us housebound quite a bit anyway. And, now we have even more to look forward to with the coming of spring. The day turned out to be a wonderful mix of fun and learning, a perfect first outing now that my leg is healing. We could not have asked for a more beautiful day.

Gardening Season Begins

This year, I got an early start on my garden, and I have been very pleased so far. In early spring, I planted peas, onions, carrots, radishes, spinach, broccoli transplants, cauliflower transplants, and brussels sprouts transplants. Oh, and lettuce... lots of lettuce. Actually, I attempted to remove the seeds from the packet and slipped, spilling the tiny seeds into the dirt. I sighed, decided not even to try extracting the nearly invisible seeds from the soil, and waited to see what would come up. As the picture shows, I will be doing quite a bit of thinning, but at least I can tell which kind is which, so we will have a variety of lettuces this year. I also planted strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries in various locations around my house and yard.

This weekend, Josh built me a second box garden next to the one we built last year. We even used some of our worm compost when filling the garden! I have so much more space now, and I also have more opportunity to rotate crops a bit to reduce pests and diseases. I could not believe how easily I filled the extra 32 square feet of space, though! I added butternut squash and two kinds of bush beans to the side garden, and I planted cucumbers, swiss chard, and celery in the old box garden with my spring veggies. I also put one asparagus plant along the side of my house, to see if it does well there. I would love fresh asparagus in the spring, but I do not want such a large perennial plant in my box gardens! In the new garden, I transplanted three kinds of tomatoes, two kinds of bell peppers, swiss chard, and a bunch of herbs, leaving myself plenty of space for a few more staggered plantings of bush beans.

Before we put in the side garden last year, weeds abounded in that spot next to our garage. Once I pulled out all the weeds and put in the veggies, however, I noticed something that was not visible before. The water run-off from our garage roof poured right into the middle of that garden, leaving a trench that eroded the soil from around any plants in that location. On Saturday, as I shopped for herbs at my favorite local greenhouse, I noticed watercress for sale. The sign said that the plants propagate themselves well in wet locations. I explained my garden situation to a person on staff, and he told me that his watercress has grown into a small waterfall in his yard and that it loves water! So, now I have watercress growing all along the edge of the trench in that garden. I hope that it will utilize previously unusable garden space, as well as hold the soil in place to prevent erosion during heavy rains. I really hope it works!

The kids, of course, love the garden and willingly eat anything we harvest - including onions, radishes, and leafy vegetables! They already love raw veggies, but they will even eat food that they typically dislike, as long as it comes from our own garden. I cannot wait to see how everything grows this year. I chose plants more wisely this year, after seeing what pests and diseases struck last year, and I think we will have a better harvest because of that. In a society in which many kids cannot even identify common vegetables, I love that my kids beg for things like eggplant and radishes! I cannot imagine a better way to teach kids about healthy eating than allowing them to harvest their own food directly from the family garden. Now, if only we lived in a neighborhood that allowed me to raise chickens...

Spring, Sweet Spring

Suddenly, this past weekend, the lamb of spring arrived and chased away the lion of winter. In fact, after such a snowy winter, this March has been remarkably mild. On Saturday, the sun shone and a warm breeze blew, rapidly melting the large piles of snow and transforming the landscape into a mess of muddy ponds and tiny leaf-filled streams. Even the first tiny crocuses appeared in the only part of my garden not blanketed with snow.

On such a beautiful day, the annual Maple Sugar Festival lured us out of our house to brave the crowds at Malabar Farm. We were fortunate enough to arrive early and get parking, since they had to close most of their parking due to the mud and turn many cars away. After quite a long wait in the mud, we finally reached the front of the line for the wagon ride up the road to the festival.

As we climbed into the wagon, the assistant asked if Hannah and Ben would like to ride up front with the driver. They loved it!

In spite of all the mud and snow, the kids enjoyed trekking from station to station, learning about maple syrup. A Native American man explained how the first people in this area processed the sap to make sugar.

Using sticks as tongs, he removed very hot rocks from a fire and placed them into a log trough filled with sap. This kept the sap boiling, evaporating the water and leaving the sugar behind. The kids enjoyed smelling the steam, with its appetizing cotton candy scent.

The next station demonstrated how early settlers in this area made maple syrup and maple sugar.

Afterward, each person could taste a tiny amount of maple sugar.

Finally, we visited the "Sugar Shack," where they still make maple syrup today.

Inside, a large vat full of sap simmered and boiled, as steam billowed up to the ceiling and out through the vents.

The kids look forward to this part each year, because, after waiting patiently for the end of the presentation, everyone got a small taste of fresh maple syrup.

Before we left, we purchased our yearly gallon of maple syrup and a few maple candies, and then we rode one of the horse-drawn wagons back to our car.

Although the kids wailed and yawned and squabbled from exhaustion the whole ride home, we all had a wonderful day together. We look forward to the Maple Sugar Festival each year as one of the sweetest signs of the coming of spring. Well... perhaps with the exception of those first lovely flowers!

Learning "On the Go"

Between sick kids and Josh's MBA class, I have not spent much time doing "formal" school with the kids this month. However, we have spent a great deal of time learning.

I have discovered that Ben enjoys when I read the Magic Tree House books to him, since some of the words are still a little difficult for him to decipher on his own. Plus, he likes asking me constant questions while I read so he can understand the information better. After reading the first book in the series, I skipped ahead to Thanksgiving on Thursday, in order to coordinate with the season. Ben and Becca liked the story, but I think some of it may have been a little over their heads. Additionally, Ben practiced reading The Story of Thanksgiving by Nancy Skarmeas. This is an excellent, simple book that explains clearly why we celebrate Thanksgiving. I only had to help him with a few words, like "Pilgrims" and "Plymouth," the first time through, and he read it perfectly to his preschool class a few days later. I was very proud of him. He is blossoming as a reader, and though he does not read as avidly as Hannah, he definitely enjoys it.

For fun, we have watched our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving DVD multiple times this month as well. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving mostly just makes the kids laugh, but The Mayflower Voyagers is wonderfully educational and has helped the kids understand what the Pilgrims faced in order to settle in the new world. The first time we watched it, they marveled loudly over the length of the journey and expressed sadness about how many of the original settlers died. Now, they impress me with the random facts about the Pilgrims that I often do not even remember from the film.

Through the busyness of this season, I have also discovered the educational value of waiting in the car for Hannah's school dismissal. Just while sitting in the car in the afternoons, Ben has learned how to count by tens and Becca has learned about rhyming words and that "ck" sounds like "k" and not "sk." I often spell a simple c-v-c word, and Becca tells me what it is, or I ask her how to spell a word and she spells it for me. She has become quite good at reading short vowel words and even surprised me today by telling me that "oo" sounds like "ew." I don't even know where she learned that one!

So, in this hectic time of year, I am squeezing education into the extra spaces of my day, by reading and talking and answering an abundance of questions. Looking back, though, I am encouraged to see that my kids are indeed learning, even if that learning does not always resemble "school."

A Sweet Adventure

A local farm hosted its annual Maple Syrup Festival this weekend. We missed last year's festival due to snow, so we made a point of attending this year. We knew the kids would love it, and we also needed to buy some more maple syrup, as the gallon we bought two years ago was beginning to run low.

We began the morning by eating pancakes with syrup, and then we headed out to the farm. A tractor drove cart-loads of people from the parking lot to the waiting area down the road. From there, several teams of draft horses pulled people in wagons back into the woods to the place where they made the maple syrup.

All along the road and on all of the paths, metal buckets hung from trees to collect the sap. Many of the buckets were full, with a thin layer of ice across the top because of the freezing nighttime temperatures.

Once we got out of the wagon, we walked through a small trail with a few stations showing the early methods of processing sugar maple sap. At the first station, people wearing period costumes and traditional Native American dress explained how Indians in the region first harvested maple sugar. They collected sap in wooden buckets and poured it into troughs carved into large logs. Then, they heated rocks in a fire and placed those rocks into the sap-filled logs. The hot rocks boiled the water and condensed the syrup, eventually leaving nothing but maple sugar. The Native Americans formed the sugar into cakes and used it on everything until their supply diminished. Unfortunately, this method left a lot of sand in the sugar, which shortened the people's lifespan by wearing down their teeth rapidly.

At the next station, women demonstrated how European settlers later used large kettles to boil down the sap and make syrup.

They needed to stir the sap frequently to prevent it from burning. Many gallons of sap are needed to make a single gallon of maple syrup.

Finally, we entered the "Sugar Shack" where they currently process their maple syrup. Steam filled the room as it evaporated constantly from a large heated vat of sap. In this more modern facility, sap comes directly through tubing that taps into the maple trees, so that people do not have to collect it from buckets every morning.

A man explained the current process of making maple syrup and gave everyone tiny samples of fresh syrup. It tasted wonderful!

After a quick picnic lunch and a stop in another small museum, we purchased some freshly made maple syrup, a piece of maple sugar candy for each of us, and a wonderful smelling maple sugar candle for our house. Once the kids settled into the warm car and the sugar rush began to wear off, they became quite drowsy and literally begged for their beds when we got home! We had a wonderful day, and the kids learned a lot. Hannah and I have already read Little House in the Big Woods together, but I think I will finish off this adventure by reading them all the two chapters from the book that describe how they made maple sugar. Overall, I would say that we had a very sweet adventure!