Horsing Around

We headed to Iowa to the Gray Farm for our own mini horse camp. In the end riding horses was just one of the fun things we did. We also went for a ride in canoes in the river, and had a bonfire/cookout up in "Deer Park" near the horse pasture. You can find more photos of our fun by clicking the link to Susie and Jon's blogspot.

The four musketeers L to R: Jon Dyke, Me, Jonathan, and Susie Gray Dyke all riding Jon and Susie's beautiful paints. These four horses are all geldings, brothers, and colts out of Susie's mare Vanna that she rode back in our 4-H days.

Jon riding Rio and Susie riding Ranger leading the way through the farm fields and timber all over the Gray Farm. We rode for about 2 hrs. and covered a lot of ground.

We ended down near the river that was outside it banks from all the recent rain. It was a hot day and it felt good to ride through knee deep water. This is Jonathan riding Chief and I was on Machio. What fun to ride again. I'm sure we will be back for more horsing around soon!

Jet Ski Camping and Kayak Guiding

For our birthdays in May Jonathan decided that his and hers jet skis would be a good surprise....and it was quite a surprise!

This is Jonathan jet skiing on the Rock River near Taft a couple days after his birthday.

We decided that we should try out the old Miss via jet ski and had heard from some ski patrol friends that you could camp on the islands in the middle of the Mississippi River. So we packed up all the camping gear into dry bags, strapped them to the jet skis, and headed out to claim an island for the weekend.

We stopped at the base of Chestnut Mountain Resort for this shot shown above. It looks a little different with no snow on the ski runs.

We found an island with nice sandy beaches to set up camp. With all the sand and water it hardly felt like we were in the Midwest that weekend. It was a great escape and one that we hope to enjoy often this summer.

The bugs weren't too bad, but we set up the tent inside the screen room just in case. It was a nice extra shelter in the rain that night (once I got the guy lines staked out tight at the corners). We were able to find firewood and had a nice fire going as well.

Don't worry, even though it is fun to go fast (60 mph) on the jet skis, we still enjoy the peaceful glide of a kayak. During the month of June we have guided several kayak trips and worked in the shop on the weekends for Fever River Outfitters in Galena, IL. Check out the website for more info:

http://www.feverriveroutfitters.com/

We were guiding a group of about 12 people on a birding tour in the back waters of the Mississippi River in this pic. We saw lots of birds as well as a few turtles, and a brown water snake.

Kayak buddies from the beginning!

Birthday Weekend 09

Andrew blew out the candles in honor of all the May birthdays.

They opened presents. We got them puppets: a frog for Will and a squirrel for Andrew. Uncle Jon was really good at making voices for the puppets.

Pam holding our newest nephew, George Thomas.

The New Canaan Memorial Day parade is always a favorite activity.

Andrew watching the parade.....and giving hugs to Uncle Jon.

6 Klein boys....what a handsome crew!

L to R: Jon and Andrew, George (the elder) and Will, and Pete and George Thomas

Time with family in Indiana

During the month of May we had the chance to head to Indiana and spend time with family on two different occasions. On Mother's Day weekend we celebrated with Rachel, my step sister, as she graduated from nursing school.

Mom and Bob are cutting the coconut cake from Patachou (a favorite cafe nearby). This cake has quickly become a tradition at all our Indiana gatherings when it is time to celebrate.

Rachel in a candid moment on her way up to the stage to receive her diploma.


Later in May, I went to Indiana again to spend some time with Mom. We did a lot of shopping and exploring around Indianapolis. One of our favorite excursions was biking on the Monon Trail.


Mom was pretty sure that the last time she was on a bike was when she was 10 or 12 years old. Well it all came back to her....just like riding a bike :-)

We rode about 5 miles into the Broad Ripple area towards downtown from Carmel. It was a lovely shaded ride. We had lunch outdoors and then headed the 5 miles back to the bike shop where we rented Mom's bike. It was a nice ending to our week together.

Backyard Lumberjacks

In exchange for letting us collect maple sap on her property we agreed to help clean-up some dead branches and trees around our friend DD's property.

It was fun to dust off the helmet and chaps and do some chainsawing again.

I think I might title this picture "things I won't be able to do once I have children" (not that I'm announcing anything). It wasn't that dangerous, although, it is a bit of an adrenaline rush to run a chainsaw while perched up in a tree.

When Jonathan wasn't taking pictures he was holding the ladder for me.

All done with that one. Now it's time to cut it up into firewood.

Jonathan delimbing. He got a new lightweight saw. Although you can't really see it in this picture he can cut with it one handed.

To aide in the clean-up, and mostly just for fun, he also rented a Toolcat (the cousin to the ever popular Bobcat). It came with several attachments including the grapple seen in the picture above, a bucket, and a wood splitter. What fun! The air conditioned cab and side by side seating was also a plus. Who knew you could hold hands while splitting logs and moving dead trees around the yard.

Easter in Chicago

We drove into Chicago to spend Easter with Don and Linda Wood (our sister in law, Sarah's parents). It was great day going to church and enjoying Easter dinner with them.

As you can see, Dr. Wood and Jonathan have similar taste in cars....what a pair?!?

Maple Sugaring

Most of March was consumed by Maple Sugaring this year. We set up a "sugar shack" in our backyard and boiled off several hundred gallons of maple sap. In the end we had lots of jars of yummy homemade syrup to share with family, friends, and co-workers. I'll try to take you through the process step by step with the next few photos.

This was the first year we tried maple sugaring and we certainly learned a lot. Jonathan did research online and surprisingly learned the most from several videos he found on youtube. He tried a few different methods for collecting the sap. Above you see his favorite: a 5 gallon bucket with a lid with a hole drilled in the top with a tube running straight from the hole tapped in the tree to the hole in the bucket lid. This was definitely efficient with almost no debris as long as you don't mind lugging 5 gallon buckets!

He also used some old coffee cans on some of the taps that were running slower. We tapped trees on Taft campus and at a friend's property down the road. All together I think we had about 40-50 trees that we were collecting from.

This is the classic set up used at Taft. The galvanized bucket is hung directly on a tap spout and covered so animals, falling leaves and branches don't get into the sap. These need to be checked once a day sometimes twice if the temperature change is just right and the sap is really flowing.

Here is nice shot of the sap flowing drip, drop. Fun fact: It takes 46,080 of these drops to equal 1 gallon of sap. It takes 40 gallons of sap to yield 1 gallon of syrup. Yikes! Do the math on that one and you can understand why the good stuff is so expensive. I've been told that a gallon of pure maple syrup up in WI often sells for $40-$50 a gallon.

It seems there is always a price to pay. We didn't get through the season injury free. No thumbs were harmed during maple sugaring, just an elbow. Jonathan slipped in the mud while carrying a bucket full of sap down a hill. He managed not to spill any sap but did hit his elbow on a fallen log and split it open. He got 10 stitches and nice infection from all the mud.

His whole hand and arm swelled up pretty bad, but he survived and has a nice scar and story to tell in the end.

Despite my thumb chopping experience earlier this year I decided to get back in the saddle and put myself in charge of splitting wood for the fire. Notice the use of thick leather gloves and a pioneer maul and fro. No more hatchets for me, thank you very much!

The sap went straight from the collection buckets to the pots on the fire. We would get several gallons collected and then do a big night of boiling it all off to a finished product. There were several nights spent boiling off - some lasted into the wee hours of the morning, but it was well worth it.

Once it started to thicken, and there was no more sap to add to the pots on the fire it was time to move things indoors. Because we boiled over an open flame there was some ash and smoke that got into the sap, but it just added to the smokey, homemade flavor. I poured the hot sap off the fire through a double felt filter to get it ready for the oven.


Here you can see two different batches going at once. One batch is from our friend DD's and the other is from Taft.

They boiled inside with the close monitoring of a candy thermometer. Once they started to foam and reached about 220 degrees it was done.

I poured it through a single felt filter to get rid of any sugar sand and remaining floaters.


It is officially syrup at this point and took awhile to drain through the filter.


This is the finished product ready to be poured into jars.

These are photos of some of our smaller first batches. Once we got the process down we started boiling off a lot more at once and would often fill this measuring pitcher twice at the end of a boiling session.

We put most of the syrup in half pint jars to share. I turned the jars upside down to cool, seal, and kill any bacteria that might be lurking on the lid.

Jonathan loved maple sugaring and has definitely found a new winter hobby. He said going to check the trees to see how much sap they had produced was like opening presents on Christmas morning every day.