Good Fowl Advice

Our fowl are convinced that spring is just around the corner. 

Our hens are laying like crazy!**

We are up to three duck eggs per day!

Heeding the advice of our chickens and ducks to get outside and enjoy the soon-to-be spring sunshine, Ian and I decided to take the boys to explore the sugar bush.  With Ian leaving for India during our maple syrup season this year, we will not be tapping trees; it is simply not a one woman job. Luckily, we have enough syrup to last our family until next spring.

In the meantime, however, we did not want the boys to miss out on the joy of "mapling" (as they call it) so we headed to Fultons' Sugar Camp.  

The boys illustrating the 40:1 sap to syrup ratio.

Since the maple syrup season has not yet started here, the camp was not busy and thus, very enjoyable.  There are some key differences in visiting a sugar shack as compared to going mapling ourselves.

Today, there was no trekking through the thigh deep snow.  All the paths were nicely plowed and we even got to go for a ride on a two horse open sleigh.

Two horse power!
The boys said that these horses, while beautiful,
smelled like "Charlie butt" (aka poop).

Our first sleigh ride as a family of five.

Alistair slept through his first visit to the sugar shack.
He was tucked away warmly in a wrap inside my coat.
Lucky for him, I am sure that there will be many, many more visits in the years to come.

There was a play structure and tobogganing hill for the kids.

 There was a fiddler roaming the camp for our musical enjoyment.  It was almost enough to drown out Liam's complaining about being cold and hungry (seriously, I might need to get a roaming fiddler for the farm too!).

And finally, there was ready made maple taffy. This was very convenient and required the boys to have much less patience compared to when we make it at home.

As it turns out, our fowl did not steer us afoul - it was so nice outside today that we too were almost convinced that spring is near.  Thanks, my fine feathered weather vanes!

** We have a surplus of eggs with all the laying that is going on here in anticipation of spring.  If you are interested in purchasing some farm fresh eggs ($5/dz), please let us know and we can arrange pick up/drop off.