Sappy yet sweet

Well, last week was March Break.  That is what they call it here...not spring break but March break. Probably because it isn't always spring in March?  LOL.  I don't know but I like it because it kind of takes that raunchy US sound out of a week off school.  It was a pretty quiet week.  Tiana had a friend over for a couple of nights and they walked into town one of the days which is quite a trek.  Then Tiana and Tabitha went into town and hung out on Thursday.  Wil took Friday off and we all headed into New York for some US shopping.  It was a lovely spring day and we had a nice time.  What was interesting is that with the weakness of the US dollar...we didn't find the deals that we normally do.  It is a nice drive and I am excited to start seeing the trees bloom and spring to arrive.

Saturday, Wil went and picked up the trailer.  For you who don't know, we bought the camper brand new and within a year found out that we had a faulty, leaky roof.  Since it is under warranty, we put in a claim and we have been waiting for a new roof for almost 2 years.  Well, we found out about a month ago that Coleman/Fleetwood has shut its doors so no warranty work, no roof.  Well the trailer place has been very nice and they have sealed the roof and checked it for leaks and they replaced the canvas on 2 of the slide outs.  So we brought it home.  We have some clean up to do inside.  We pulled the curtains out and washed them and pulled some of the fixtures out to clean them up.  This weekend, we are hoping that we can open it up and finish the clean up and then at least it will be usable again.  There is a lot of camping here but with all the mosquitoes, I don't know that it sounds like alot of fun...we'll see.  At least we have the option now.

On Sunday, we went to visit a sugar bush.  What is a sugar bush?  Well, it is Maple syrup time in Ontario, the sap is flowing and the production has begun.  There are numerous sugar bushes, sugar camps, sugar shacks in the area and right now is the time to go visit.  So we picked Wheelers Sugar bush.  Here is the link to their website if you want to learn more about them.  http://www.wheelersmaple.com/  It was lovely.  Now, I must say, I am not a maple syrup fan.  Wil and Tabitha love it but I have found the maple syrup that people have brought us from Canada (when we were in the US) and the stuff people buy here way to sweet and to mapley.  I don't know, I just never understood what the big deal is.  Well, as I read up on the various shacks I found that there are many grades of syrup and that the commercial stuff is one of the heavier grades.  So I was interested to find out what the lighter grades tasted like.  Well, we left and went for brunch.  The pancakes were wonderful, large and fluffy and the french toast was yummy but the maple sausages were the best.  I'll get back to those.  So the syrup that they served us with breakfast was the light grade and it was fabulous.  Now I still think that I will like the extra light better because by the end of the meal, it was still very sweet for me but I can say that I really liked it.  Now to the sausages.  I don't like sweet mixed with my salty in most cases so maple sausages have never been my favorite.  I love a good breakfast sausage but I don't dip it in my breakfast syrup and I don't like to bite into it and taste syrup.  Yuck!  Well , these were great.  I can't describe it but they were the perfect mix of breakfast sausage with just a tinge of light maple flavor.  It was great! 

Ok, enough about the food.  We went on a horse drawn sleigh ride through the sugar maples and were in awe of the whole process.  Literally thousands of sugar maples tapped and linked together by the tubing that takes the sap to the main pump room where they boil it into maple syrup.  It really was fascinating.  I would like to have taken a stroll through the trees but I think I will wait and go back this fall when the sugar maples are at the height of their color change and do it then.  It will be fabulous!  There was a chainsaw museum, a maple syrup making museum and maple taffy on snow, of course.  It was a lovely morning.  We will have to check out a different one every spring until we find a favorite.  What a fun thing!

Well, today is the 30 day mark until Wil leaves.  We have one month to get everything done that we need to before he leaves.  He was busy this weekend doing little things, including moving one of our out buildings to a better place and such.  He also unplugged the snowblower in preparation for us to turn it back into a lawn tractor.  On Saturday he said, " I think we are done with snow".  I said, "great now it will snow and it is your fault". He laughed.  Well guess what, we are supposed to get 5-10 centimeters today.  We shall see..but, yes, I will blame him if we do!  :)

This weekend, I got the guest room all cleaned up and turned from a cat room back into a guest room.  We have moved Simbas litter box downstairs and he now can roam free all day.   It feels good to have that room back in order and ready for guests.  It was nice enough on Saturday to open the windows and it felt great to get the rooms aired out but I was disturbed by how much cat hair comes off of one long hair cat.  ALOT!  Oh well, it is easier to sweep it up then to vacuum it.

Well, I better get moving, Tiana just convinced me to take her to school and as I look out my window, it is snowing like mad.  THANKS WIL!  :)

Love you all,

Brenda