Syrup, Socks and Sad Jelly Moulds

We missed the first run of sap collecting and maple syrup making because it was a warm spell in early February.   We've found that there is only a small window of a couple of weeks for our spiles when we tap the trees, before they start healing up and the sap flow is diminished or stopped completely.  It was worse when we took advantage of an early warm spell a few years ago, so we waited.   Now people are saying that the maple sap season could end much earlier than expected.  Still, we got our first trees tapped a week ago and had over 100 litres to boil last weekend.   

With our set up, the old Franklin stove over the fire pit and 2 roasting pans, 1 to heat the sap and the other to reduce it, it's about the minimum we can do to have a reasonable batch of syrup to finish.   Hubby gets it most of the way and then I finish the syrup in the kitchen.  This way I can be more accurate with getting the syrup to the desired temperature - which is 219 F.  This is about 66% sugar content, and is very shelf stable.   Then I need to filter/strain the syrup to get out any ash and other icky things, re-heat it

to boiling, and put it into canning jars.   This takes a few hours.  It was a bit risky this time as not  one but both of my candy thermometers decided to not calibrate and wouldn't show a temperature above the boiling point.    I ended up sticking my meat thermometer in and figured out how to set it for the desired temperature and boy,  that instant read probe showed 217F.   It was only a few more minutes boiling until we got to the right temperature.  Once I'd done the filtering and canning, and cleaned up, and had my cup of celebratory tea, I tossed both of those uncooperative thermometers out.   We have just over 2.25 litres of syrup from this batch.

I spun some yarn with mill ends of a merino/cashmere/silk/nylon blend.  Most of them were fine but there were a bunch that needed to be re-processed by hand.   Mostly, the yarn was really nice, but a few of those re-processed bits were harder to spin, so there were a few uneven bits in the yarn.   However, it was between a sock weight and a sport weight after dyeing, so I tried it on the sock machine.  It was a little iffy in a couple of places, but mostly this was a really nice pair of socks to machine knit.   They are definitely a little heavier than I like, but next time I'll aim for a slightly skinnier yarn and I'll take more care to make sure that my roving or rolags are more carefully prepared.  Or  I'll just use commercially prepared wool and skip that first step completely :)

The kitchen is almost finished after 13 years.   The walls got painted 2 weeks ago.   I'm not sure I like the colour I chose.  If I'd gone with the first colour it would have been fine, but I switched last minute and it's a lot cooler of a colour than I thought.  It does go well with the cabinets though.   I had taken down m copper jelly mould collection to store it before painting.  This was 3 or 4 years ago...  I went to put them up and found 3 of them damaged.  Something had dripped on them and corroded the metal.  It was weird because there was a puddle of it in the rose mould which was gummy like a silicone or a weird dry wall compound, but we couldn't figure out how they would have come in contact with anything while stored in a box. 

  I'm pretty sad about the melon mould because that was one which makes very Victorian shaped deserts. That one and the one with the roses are designs I've not often seen so they'll be more difficult to replace.   The dots and lines one is a duplicate that I got because  a) it was $2  and b) was a very red copper rather than the gold copper that was already in the collection.  I've seen more of those around.   Most of our thrift stores have been shut down, which was my main places to find them.   I've seen a few in antique and vintage stalls, but they are much more expensive.

Otherwise -  I made 3 pair of socks for my daughter for her tiny, skinny feet and another pair for her husband who had dramatically larger feet.  I helped prep and run a craft session at the museum for a whack-load of kids.   We were told that there could be 150 kids or more.  Luckly there were just half that amount, which was plenty to do a craft with in the just under 4 hours we were allotted.  I saw a flock of swans overhead on my way home from Westfield, although I was unable to get a photo because they were flying so very quickly.  February has flown by.  While the weather hasn't been horridly cold or miserable, I'm looking forward to warmer temperatures and yearning a bit for my garden.

Springlike weather : blip or early spring?

 

I just took these springtime socks off the CSM.  I haven't had time to kitchener up the toes yet.  I saw this skein of yarn on sale for under $10.  They colours reminded me of spring, new growth and the end of winter so of course the yarn, especially being on sale, had to come home with me.

They worked up so quickly and easily that I am thrilled with that sock yarn.   It was nice because I made a pair of socks with some cotton/wool blend yarn that I received in a yarn swap some years ago and they are a bit harsh.  Maybe they'll be nicer after washing them a few times.

I'm way behind on getting the warp on the loom for my friend's apron.   It's been kind of crazy here.  First we had snowy and blizzard like weather so getting into town to get the sizing I needed didn't happen.  Finally I got it, then had to find the time to size the yarn.  It's been awhile and I realized that I didn't have a place to hand the skeins.  Not only had I always dried them outside in the past, but I'd put a light weight on them to keep the skeins in order.   Instead, I had to dry them inside, with no place to hang them - we don't have a bathtub with a shower rod - plus they weren't weighted at all,so they dried all krinkly and it took several days. I had to bring the skeins out and set them in front of the wood stove to dry in the end.   Then it took  days to actually wind the skeins into useable balls because of the kinky bits of yarn getting stuck to and caught under other bits.   It was a slow process.  Now Kevin seems to want to use the wound balls as a napping place.   Because Kevin doesn't like me disturbing him, and I don't want him to pee on my shoe or something like that, I've left him to his peace and quiet.  

The prognosticating rodents (groundhogs) in the area all predicted an early spring, but this has been a bit ridiculous and unexpected.  The weather has been so unseasonably warm the past week.  Some people have even started their syrup/ sap collecting.   We discussed it, but decided to wait.   The last time we put our spiles in early, we had a great start, but once the daytime temperatures drop to below freezing the tree starts to heal.  So instead of having to re-drill holes, we're waiting and hoping that we get some colder weather to stop the sap running for now.  Then we can tap our trees later in the season.

It was warm enough to hand out a laundry, albeit a small load.   That blanket is beloved by Dion kitty.  He wasn't impressed that it was shiny clean and smelled all fresh and outdoorsy.  He gave it a long stare and then had to be enticed on to it before he settled down for his nap.

Walking and Weaving

We had a lot of rain a little while back, which was on top of snow.   If the snow pack is deep enough,  it will absorb a lot of the rain and hold it.   It wasn't though, and the temperatures were unseasonably mild, so a bit of rain made the snow heavy with the extra moisture.  Then the excess rain started collecting and running in little streams on top of the frozen ground.   Then, because it's been above freezing the snow melted, creating more water running.   The water ran from the fields beside our house, through our back yard and into the chicken coop soaking their bedding and then out to the neighbour's fields on the other side.   This is now the second time this winter we've had to change out the wet  bedding.

  Usually we use a deep bedding process in the chicken coop, where the chook droppings mix with the bedding and slowly start to compost, giving off a bit of heat in the cold. We just toss in a bit of fresh shavings periodically to cover eveything.  Not this year though.  Luckily chooks are pretty hardy animals.   They don't like the winter, that's for sure.  I let them out to free range and if there is no snow on the ground, they run to the bird feeder to see if there is a snack for the on the ground.   If there is snow, they barely peek out of the barn and they won't leave the area to feed anywhere else while the ground is cold.   

We went for a walk down one of our favourite trails a few days ago.  All this rain has left the area rivers and streams running high and in low areas there has been flooding.  This part of the trail was impassible due to the flooding.   You can see that the water level has already started dropping by the dark, wet marks on the tree trunks.  The water is flowing quite quickly too.  

Today we were at another trail, which has a much higher elevation.  There were a few muddy bits and one shady area which was a bit icy because the sun hasn't reached there yet.   Mostly though, it was easy to traverse.  We had sunshine today (gasp!), which was lovely.  We don't get a lot of sunshine here during the winter, so the trail parking lot was full of people out enjoying the weather.  The little lake is still mostly frozen.   There is one area that is open and another where you can see it starting.   It's not safe to walk on or play on although it can look deceiving. 

 I bought some pretty yarn a few days ago.  It was on sale for a good price.  It was purples and blues, with a silver metallic sparkle running through it.   I got only 2 balls because I'm pretty sure this won't sell or be a hit, but I really wondered what it would look like woven up.  The yarn is good acrylic and has a lovely hand: soft and drapey.    I separated all the colours and did a stripe to make a checky pattern.  I think this might have been better served leaving it as it was and just having random stripes as the amounts of each yarn varied.  As well some had a clear demarcation between colours and others had a long transition with the colours blending.   There was only enough of the teal to do those thin stripes, while there is tons of paler purple left.   I'm doing random weft stripes of the light purple and the darker blues, with a couple of the purple/red colour in between.  You can't really see the purple red stripes in the busyness of the other colours and all that freaking sparkly silver.  There is so much of it.  It sure didn't look like that in the skein. I'd be all over this yarn if it didn't have the sparkly ply because it's so easy to weave with.  I think so much sparkle takes away from the lovely colours and how they work together, and the softness of the yarn.

SO MUCH SPARKLE!