The Sap is Running!

Mummy and I tapped five maple trees this afternoon and the sap is running as I blog. We went out into her forest with her father's ancient auger, spiles, and her collection of ice cream tubs from the winter (as you will see, Hoof Prints is her favourite) and bored holes into a select bunch of trees.

 

It has been years since we tapped maple trees - the spiles had been lost in mummy's garage but were unearthed in the great garage clean-out last October. The auger has always been hanging up in her porch, so that was easy to find. At a ratio of 40 litres of sap for 1 litre of syrup, we'll need plenty of warm sunny days and below O° nights + a whole lot of boiling to get a jug each.

This sap is also running after a long winter of blahs:

back on the dusty trail

A co-worker and I have decided to do this Eco-Endurance Challenge in Halifax on May 4th. The menacing countdown clock on the website tells me that I have 35 days 11 hours 3 minutes and 6 seconds to train for this. So, not really knowing what to expect or how to prepare, my plan is to run 5kms every day + do killer power yoga with Rodney Yee every day + a couple of 4 hour hikes in the woods with a GPS on the weekends between now and then. If anyone has any better ideas, please share.