Canada Goose

Posted April 23, 2013

Mother goose on eggs… In mall parking lot…

Sky Dance

Posted April 22, 2013

“He flies in low from some neighboring thicket, alights on the bare moss, and at once begins the overture: a series of queer throaty peents spaced about two seconds apart, and sounding much like the summer call of the nighthawk.” This is how Aldo Leopold, in A Sand County Almanac, begins his poetic description of […]

Ice storm

Posted April 14, 2013

The Grand River Conservation Authority put out a warning on Friday for their staff to stay out of forests.  They warned that trees might experience “sudden catastrophic failure.” Here is evidence of that. We had 5 trees in our sugar bush come down at Laurel Creek. All 5 were close together, and had their roots pulled out of the ground. […]

A Sweet Weekend

Posted April 1, 2013

Well, the Easter weekend has come and gone and it was highly successful in terms of maple syrup production.  Boiling time over three days beginning Friday at 8 am and ending Sunday at 9 pm was 36 hours and netted 90 litres of syrup.  With sap coming in from the trees at 2% sugar the […]

Easter in the Sugar Bush

Posted March 28, 2013

The Easter weekend begins tomorrow, and it looks to be a busy one in the sugar bush.  We’ve had a cold spring and hadn’t had a run of sap since March 13.  Things have warmed up marginally  this week – still in the low single digits – but enough to get some sap moving up […]

Return of the Outdooredguys

Posted March 21, 2013

Al and I purchased a new stainless steel storage tank for the Camp Heidelberg sugar bush and it arrived from Quebec this week.  It will replace an older galvanized tank, and has a greater volume – about 1300 litres.  With that extra sap goes more weight, and the raised platform it sits on needed some […]

Dickson Den…?

Posted March 18, 2013

I set up my camera again at another den site.  There were obvious canine prints at and about the entrance but they appeared to be too small for coyote.   Instead, a Red Fox appeared (Vulpes vulpes).  Coyote seldom tolerate a fox nearby so I suspect the prints I see along the hedgerow behind Wrigley […]

Owl Pellet Fun

Posted March 16, 2013

Owl pellets contain the indigestible remains –  fur and bones – of prey eaten by owls.  Mrs. Pavlove’s grade 4 class dissected some at school  – they were studying food chains in the Habitats and Communities unit.  This is what they had to say… Dear Mr. Rasberry, Our class dissected the owl pellets today. They […]

Sap to Syrup in 3:58

Posted March 13, 2013

I edited a couple of movie clips together starting with sap dripping from the trees and ending with hot syrup being bottled.  It normally takes 8 hours to complete this process – you can see it in just 3 minutes 58 seconds.  On your mark, get set, go… [wpvideo 6M3fG8ot]

Super Sappy from the Sugar Shack

Posted March 12, 2013

I am typing this from inside the sugar shack where I am boiling off the sap that was collected yesterday, approx 700L, and the first batch of syrup for the day is really close to being ready. I should only be a few more minutes before I am filtering and bottling. It is an interesting […]

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