Sap For Dinner

Hi all,

Yes, sugaring season has begun! Earlier this week buckets popped up all over the place, sometimes two to a tree. Housemom went for a walk with the kids to get some (they were going to do a sugar run, but didn't collect this weekend = almost over-flowing buckets!) and so she decided we should drink it instead of water with dinner! It was only slightly thicker than water, and only tinged with sweetness. Pretty good, all things considered. Oh, and my blueberry-strawberry crisp was a hit.

Thankfully, crisp is easy to make, otherwise I'm not sure my energy level would take it. One of the villagers (the almost completely non-verbal one) decided he wanted to help out. These offers are fleeting, and it's a mark that he really likes you. So even if it went like the dishwasher - with me following every thing behind - I still enjoy his help. He did a good job of putting the sliced-up strawberries into the bowl to be tossed with the blueberries and helpfully pointed emphatically to the oven. He did, however, manage to "decorate" the bathroom with some strawberry juice when I sent him to wash up...When I came back a few minutes later to do a quick check, I discovered he was wearing the aprons that housemom and I use most frequently. It was really cute.

Other than the crisp, I was pretty unproductive. I did do laundry, including ALL Of the blankets on my bed. There was one scratchy blanket I wasn't sure about, but since I didn't see a tag, I just decided to throw it in. When I went to move it to the dryer, I discovered the "Dry Clean ONLY!" tag on it. Whoops. However, I vaguely remembered from the last time that I washed a wool blanket (on purpose, thank you) I looked it up and found out that they can be mostly dried in the dryer. So that was the plan...yeah. I came downstairs to find most of the load still very damp, and the blanket almost entirely dry. As I pulled it out, housemom came in and said
"Oh! I was going to tell you about that...but I forgot!"
Turns out she knew it was wool - she'd brought that blanket with - and was going to tell me to not dry it, but hang it up (she didn't know about the dry clean only either, apparently). Fortunately, it was completely intact and after I expressed my dismay that I could've shrunk it, she merely exclaimed:
"Well, it would've made a good throw for the couch then!"
Cool, or what?

I mostly stayed in my room reading, sleeping and doing some metal work. I had the humidifier on a little too long though - my posters started to slip down the wall as the tape lost adhesive! Other than that, nothing too exciting happened.

Tomorrow will be another story. I'm feeling quite a bit better than yesterday, and expect that trend to continue. Apparently there will be a meeting held to try to find a volunteer to come and take the place of the co-worker that's going home at the end of this week. We're hoping someone who has been here a while (and thus knows the drill) will step up and want to move. Hopefully someone who is positive, enthusiastic, good/patient with children and wants to be incorporated into house life. Worse case scenario is that they'll stick in an in-coming person at a later date. I mean, the person that they find could be absolutely super, but it will be a lot more stressful to have to go without a co-worker for a while and then to have someone get completely acclimated to the house. True, I was in the boat not too long ago, but I think I acclimated quite quickly.

Anyhow, enough patting myself on the back!

Hope all is well,
Steph