sugar snow!

There is a scene in Little House in the Big Woods, the first of the Little House books, where a late-season snow caused the maple trees to produce a whole lot of sap. They called it Sugar Snow.

Well, we woke to snow. And it's still snowing as I type this.

At some point this morning we noticed our sap bags almost overflowing. Sugar snow! Even though the sap had mostly dried up since our last collection,  we decided to leave the taps a few more days to see what the colder temps and snow would do. Turns out, they would do a lot. Rory collected 19 gallons of sap today! The previous one-day record was 7 gallons. There was so much sugar water and the 4 gallon bags were refilling so fast that he had to go buy more containers to hold the stuff until we have the chance to boil it down.

We're very much ready for springtime. But I have to say, having something so exciting happening today made the day feel sort of special. Which is the positive spin I'm throwing out there, because I'm starting to realize winter doesn't much care that I think she should wrap it up. Until then, we'll be happily boiling down sap into syrup, glad to have something fun to do outside until these 6 inches (and falling) of snow melts away.

And for a super great read, go and read Hootenannie who likens April weather to a hormonal teenage girl. Hysterical.