What a Weekend!

Charlotte and Bea watch the maple sap drip from a newly tapped tree

Last weekend it seemed like the winter was never ending, my back would never heal, and we’d be stuck inside forever. But this weekend it seems like spring is right around the corner! Maybe it was the 40 degree temps that had the snow melting and the sap running, or maybe it was just finally crossing some things off our “get ready for spring” list that we’d been needing to get done for some time. We ordered our poultry from Murray McMurray hatchery, ordered our seeds from Fedco, got our oyster mushroom growing project started, and got our maples tapped.

We’re pretty excited about these mushrooms. We got the spawn a couple weeks ago at the February swap meet, and have been waiting for them to completely colonize their jar, and then holding it in the fridge until this weekend. Margaret and the girls spent Sunday morning cutting up straw for the mushrooms to grow in, and then we spent a good part of the rest of the day trying to pasteurize the straw in the downstairs bathtub. By evening, we got the straw and the spawn packed in a milk crate, wrapped in plastic and in the basement. We’ll know next weekend, I think, if things took.

We celebrated getting the taps in with waffles topped with last year’s strawberry sauce. We ran out of maple syrup some months ago, but it’s exciting to think, next weekend, when we dig into our pancakes, they’ll be topped with a fresh new batch of maple syrup.

For more pictures of our weekend activities, check out our page on Facebook.

Charlotte, Bea and Margaret fill our bathtub with the cut straw for our oyster mushrooms to grow on.