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.

Snow Shoeing at Taft

We had an off weekend from ski patrol a couple weeks ago. It was nice to just stay home for a few days. We decided to borrow some of the snow shoes from work and go for hike in the forest around campus.

We started out down by the river delta and followed one of the trails about a mile up the gully to South Field.

This is a picture of Jonathan making his own fresh tracks in South Field.

While we were out, we came across a lot of animal tracks out in the forest. This is picture of my foot next to a set of deer tracks. It was fun to follow the tracks and see where they led.

17 feet of Home Sweet Home

We found a camper on Ebay to use as our home away from home while we are patrolling at Chestnut Mountain. Let's just say that sleeping separately in the guys and girls dorms with a bunch of rowdy college kids every weekend was getting really old really fast.

It is a gently used 1995 Salem by Cobra. Jonathan drove down to Arkansas to pick it up after we won the Ebay auction. I uploaded a bunch of the photos from the ad on Ebay below. Probably more than you want to look at, but here it goes.....

We especially like the "mountain graphics" on the front window cover.

It came with 2 propane tanks and lots of storage room.

It also has a working air conditioner and a hitch on the back for pulling a second trailer (I'm not sure that we will ever attempt this, but if we want to try it the hitch is there)

A nice view of the dinette and furnace just inside the front door.

The trailer will sleep 6 (4 adults and 2 children). The storage cupboards over the dinette fold down to make a bunk for one. The dinette also folds down to make a full sized bed for two. It will make a nice "guest bed" for any visitors who want stay with us.

There is a nice hanging closet with plenty of room for ski jackets, etc.

A radio, with built in speakers all over the camper, that tunes in some pretty good radio stations.

The storage cupboard above the couch also folds down into a bunk for one. We fold the couch down into a full sized bed that is just perfect for us and our double sleeping bag.

A pantry and big refrigerator.

A shot looking towards the front of the trailer from the couch in the back.

Several pictures of the kitchen and gas range and oven.

It also has a full bath with toilet, sink, shower, and 1/2 tub. For now we are just "dry camping" which means that we aren't hooked up to water or electricity while we are out at Chestnut. We use the propane heater for warmth and the battery for lights. We can still shower, etc. in the dorms or pool area at the resort. We have stayed in it 2 weekends already and it is great!

I did some decorating with outdoor sports posters and ski trail maps. I also made a custom sign/key rack to make it feel more like home. So "Welcome to the Ski Hut." We have decided that is a good name for it.

We have already enjoyed having a place to invite people to come and hangout after the hill closes. Matt (a fellow ski patrol candidate) is pictured with Jonathan above.

Jonathan sleeping soundly. I had to get him back for the puffy coat picture in an earlier post :-)