The End of Winter and Other Updates

Winter here in the Northeast appears to be on its way out the door, despite the forecasts for some snow later in the week. The sap has already begun to flow and sugaring season started a few weeks ago, which has kept the farm workers busy. There has been very little sap in the last few days, but there should be more tomorrow. And we have already started making syrup and other maple products, which we had run out of just before the season started.

Starting the fire in the evaporator

The warm days have been excellent for being outdoors, so this Saturday when we had nothing to do one of my friends and I took a long walk in the woods, toting cameras.

We walked on the bike paths for a while, which took us around Shadow Lake.

Shadows in Shadow Lake

Then, after following what appeared to be a trail but disappeared, we crossed a murky stream into a maze of sap-lines. We tried to figure out where the lines emptied, but eventually gave up and followed another path that we found.

These rocks are part of a sort of bluff with a rocky cliff on one side. We climbed it, of course.

We hit another beaten track shortly after that, which happened to be the path that Richard and I drove the horses on several weeks ago. We followed it for a while, but then we spotted a waterfall a little way off-trail. Jamaica has asked me to not tell everyone about the place we found as our own photography-paradise, so I'll just show the photos that I made. These are all unedited, by the way, because although they need some processing I don't have the time (midterms coming up this week!).

Of course, we made our way back to the horses eventually.

I hope you enjoyed that little adventure vicariously. You'll probably be seeing more of that waterfall in the future, hopefully on a brighter day. It was snowing a little bit that day.