We are experiencing the first really springlike day so far this year today. The sun is bright, the sky cloudless, just a gentle breeze, birds singing, robins hopping about, water running in the road and occasional ditch - you can fairly hear the snow melting.

Fred and I were out early to take advantage of the frozen snow pack. We left the house sometime before eight o'clock and took to the woods. We could walk almost anywhere we wanted without breaking through; but there were certain pitfalls, like fallen trees that were hidden under the snow. Because the snow hasn't packed solidly around them, it's almost certain there are big hollows under and around them waiting to open up and devour your whole leg, or sometimes both legs. These are difficult to extricate yourself from because there is usually brush underneath that allows easy downward thrust, but blocks or severely hinders pulling your foot back out. We both fell victim to these traps, but suffered no real damage - just wet trousers and snow-packed boot tops.

We took pictures along the way, so here's a short slide show of our morning walk:
April 9, 2011 Woods Walk










After we got back and had breakfast, I checked my e-mail and found Evelyn had sent some historic photos of spring at her house over the years. The pictures were taken from about the same spot each year and show clearly the huge differences in spring breakup here at Joe's Pond. 2008 looks something like 2011, but does have more definition of the channel, like Evelyn points out.









Other years, 2009 and 2010 were much further along towards summer. Evelyn didn't send a picture of 2010, but I had one on file she had sent last year of Ray hauling in a piece of someone's dock that was floating upside down in front of their house, and you can see there was hardly any snow at all. Here's what Evelyn wrote this morning:

Good Morning Jane,  Thought I would send a couple of photos to you this morning taken on April 9, 2008, 2009 and this morning.  (In 2010 the channel was completely open, we had Ice Out already, there were ducks geese otters and beavers...and the loons returned on April 11).  This year the ice is still tight to the shore... with very little definition of the channel... Maybe the Ice-Out will have a new record breaker date this year... (latest ever...)??  Have a good one!!  As always, enjoying the melting process!!  Evelyn

I had a newsletter from Burr Morse, of Morse Farm Maple Sugar Works this morning. Burr is quite a story teller, and talked about cooking hotdogs in maple sap. I can't quite put that taste combination together, but I suppose it isn't any more unusual than hard boiling eggs in sap, which was a tradition when the Bolton family sugared. I was thinking about that the other day and wondered if anyone else did that, or was it just our family, but Burr mentioned egg boiling as a very normal treat during sugaring. I remember how good our sandwiches always tasted sitting at the makeshift table with the steam billowing up from the old evaporator, and those eggs were better than dessert. I was never too keen on maple syrup, though. With me, a little goes a long way because it's so sweet. I like it now more than I did then, I think. Especially over my oatmeal in the morning.

Burr also mentioned that the sap this year is 12% sweeter this year than it was last year, which means it takes less boiling to make syrup and they're getting more of it, he said. He's passing the savings on to their customers, selling this year's new syrup at 12% off the price they charged last year. That's what the man said, so I guess if you're in the market for maple syrup, Morse Farm Sugar Works is a good place to start looking. Here's a link:
Morse Farm Website