Nature Friday - Early Spring - by Lee

 

Dear pals, 

Early spring is upon us and nature is coming out in full force. Last week we shared canine tracks, which Lady is pretty sure were coyote because Tuesday morning we heard a coyote in the sugar bush. Don't worry, she texted Callie's Lady to let her know one was so close. Then Wednesday night, Lady heard 'someone' on the deck and called Man to look and he heard the racoon climb the drainpipe and saw it on the roof. One day while Lady was at work, and Man was working from home, I was barking and barking. Since I may bark a lot, Man thought I was just barking for fun, but he checked it out and there was a bit of a turkey fight happening on the front lawn. 

It is also the end of the maple sugar season. On our walk we saw this old style bucket full of sap. When talking to Callie's Man, he said he is not even going to collect this because he is almost over the season. He expects to have made about 200 litres. Not bad for a year that many places have not had a good season and the Maple Syrup Reserve hit a 16 year low. Fun fact the maple syrup reserve, housed in our home province of Quebec, was established in 2000 to stabilize prices and prevent shortages. 

We went for a visit to the sugar shack on Saturday. I must say watching the sap boil is very boring. Perhaps almost as boring as hearing people discuss the going price of maple syrup this season (about $30 Canadian/$22 US/21 Euros/18 pound sterling a litre). 

Phod wasn't so much as bored as hot, the temperature needs to be very hot to boil the sap. Callie's Man has gone through 8 cords of wood, just on boiling this year.

Then April played a late April's Fools joke on us. On April 3 a storm started and took out our power. At the time of writing this it had been off for over 24 hours and is only expected back today. If we are lucky before we hit the 48 hour power free mark. We got hit with another 4 inches/10 cm.

That is some of the early spring things happening in our part of the world.

Thanks to Rosy and Sunny for hosting this event.