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| The garden pond finally opened and look who was there to greet me. |
31 degrees/partly cloudy/calm winds
Pentoga Road
I looked at the pond from our upstairs bedroom window Monday morning and my first thought was that it was overflowing. Throwing my clothes on, I struggled into my barn boots and made my way out to the water's edge. I shoveled snow and chipped ice from the overflow that allows excess water to flow from the pond to alongside the garden and finally, into a culvert under the road and onto Jambo's plantation.
I was delighted to see the goldfish and know they made it through a long and difficult winter.
The blueberry bushes didn't fare so well these past six months. With the heavy snow and ice of November and December, they are but mere nubs of their former selves.
Winter has taken its toll and it appears this will be a slim blueberry year on Pentoga Road.
We did end up boiling yesterday. The clouds, mist, cold temperatures, and heavy wind of the early morning morphed into a fairly nice day. In fact, in the end, we boiled all the sap that was in storage and are now ready to begin collecting to fill the empty barrels. The boiler won't be started again for a few days.
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| I'm pouring the last of the stored sap into the large container that will flow down into the evaporator to be boiled. |
The quart bottles of syrup look good. We probably have enough for this coming year, but hope to put up another three gallons or so, plenty to put in the "syrup bank" should we not boil next year for some reason.
This year's sugar content in the sap seems quite low. The rule of thumb states that it takes approximately forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. I've had years where it took as little as thirty two gallons and this year, the number seems closer to fifty. I have no idea how or why the sugar content changes from year to year, but that's part of the challenge.
Regardless, the end product remains the same. It just takes more sap and longer to boil it down.
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| Fresh from the boiler, this hot jar of syrup is light and very sweet, just the way we like it. |
We self quarantined ourselves in the Kia and made our way to the dam in Crystal Falls to watch the yearly melt water spill over the hydro electric dam on the Paint River.
Last night was a quiet one, very quiet. I dozed off around 7 PM on the couch, yet was conscious enough to watch some television until bedtime. Poor Sargie was left to her own devices across the living room. I'm afraid I'm not much company during the evening hours these days.
As everyone who knows Sargie and me has come to realize, we're exact opposites.
She enjoys sleeping in when possible and my eyes seem to pop wide open anywhere between 4 to 5 AM. Midnight would be her preferable bedtime. I'd gladly go upstairs anytime after 8 PM.
My peak mental and physical time occurs around 6 AM. Her's is closer to 6 PM.
I'm boisterous, a talker, and regardless what I try to convince you of on the blog, often, not a very deep thinker.
Sargie's very quiet, a listener. She has a way of making one want to talk to her, taking each person in with her eyes, silently communicating she's willing to listen. My girl thinks, really thinks, before talking.
Me? My mouth often races ahead of my brain.
I'm the outdoor type, gung ho, give 'em hell, damn the torpedos, full speed ahead. Sargie's much more refined. I'm still trying to talk her into accompanying me on my thru-hike attempt of the Appalachian Trail in 2022.
Yeah, ask me how that's going.
With tongue in cheek, I say that if you can't see germs, how do you know they really exist. Though not a germaphobe by definition, Sargie could be defined as borderline. In this day of the Corona Virus, that's a good thing one of us some common sense.
Sargie's afraid of the dark. I'm not.
She likes unsweetened tea. I only drink Miss Jody's sweet tea.
I love to swim and be on, over, or around the water. Sargie's fearful of any body of water that is deeper than her big toe.
She loves her McDonald's Coke. If I have a sip once a week, that's good enough.
She prefers hot weather. I like cooler temperatures.
And the list goes on and on, but I think that's why we get along so well and are such a perfect match. Sargie really tries to join my world and I her's, and with those things that are not shared, we give our blessing for the other to enjoy.
There are no jealousies and other than playing a game of H-O-R-S-E (basketball) in the drive, no competition. (She continually beats me into submission and destroys my athletic self esteem.)
My Sargie has taught me to be a bit more refined, that waiting for her at a woman's clothing store won't turn me into a girl and reminds me I don't have to continually climb to the peak of the highest mountain in the name of manhood.
She's also taught me that asking someone to "pull my finger," is never appropriate, even with those we know and love.
I've taught her that there's a whole world of activities that can be fun and adventurous, yet safe. She can and does drive any of the machinery around here, builds a fire like pro, loves to go fishing and often suggests we go before I get a chance to.
Both of us are doing things now we've never done before.
Why?
We love each other, even if she won't hike with me and I fall asleep nightly at 7 PM.
It's a match made in Heaven and God certainly knew what He was doing when He introduced two unlikely, opposite, hurting souls.
OK, not sure where all that came from, but what I am certain of is that it's time to go for my morning walk.
If Carl the Weatherman is correct (and he is about half the time) we'll be collecting sap once, maybe twice today.
Time to get moving.
After all, a man's work is never done.
So are the tales from Pentoga Road...
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| Today's random Alaska picture: Mostly Inupiaq and Yupik Eskimo students paddling a Tlinget Indian canoe. |
This was supposed to be a cross cultural weekend and I quickly learned that thousands of years of hard feelings between the two cultures weren't forgotten. We didn't do it the next year.
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