Walnut Syrup

Walnut sap is/was flowing. What do you do with walnut sap? Ah, good question.

Turns out, the same thing you do with maple sap.....boil it to syrup! Oh my house smells so good right now, like German Chocolate cake. Sugaring season is my favourite part of winter/spring on the farm and almost makes the cold bearable. Maybe we are all just sugar drunk on sap, though.

Some observations and questions though.
1) little gelly blobs keep forming in the sap/syrup boil. I searched online to find out what this is and only found another sugarer asking the same question. Anyone know?
2) This sap seems to take longer to boil down.
3) They are flowing earlier than the maples. This may be a way to maximise our syrup and better tell when the maples will start flowing?
4) Our walls are NOT sticky. Not even a little bit. Nor is the underside of the shelf above the boil or the back of the stove.  Our windows are not even fogging up.
5) If you use bags instead of buckets, remember to collect before nightfall and don't let it freeze in the bags. Destruction happens.

Nesting At Home

From the moment my bags hit the floor at Grampa's and the kids jumped off the stairs into my arms, they have been randomly hugging me and cooing, "Aw, Mama...." It is especially endearing when Isaac says this. He then kisses me and says, "I you love, Mama."

Of course the minute I got home they also, all three, burst into fevers. Four, if you count Chad. They have all been a sweet, sorry lot this weekend.

So, I brought out the pot and made soup with a whole head of garlic, stocked up on cranberry juice and tea, and cancelled all outings for the week. I feel a slight pressure in my head too, but I am taking elderberry and trying to keep it at tickle level instead of full blown plague.

All three kids are really into legos. We have to get more regular blocks. Imaginative building is so much fun!

Getting Home Again

I have not yet shared the details of my bus ride and night spent in Memphis, in part because I was trying to freak myself out into a panic attack at the thought of returning home the same way. The trip home also had a 3 hour layover in Memphis at midnight. The biggest problem I experienced with the Megabus was that the long layover and bus stops were not marked, just random street corners, and not in a populated place with eateries. Memphis was the worst. Only a liquor store, three blocks away. I was terrified that I would not make it back to the unmarked loading point, either from being mugged or forgetting my way back.

There's more, I will share later, but suffice it to say, that one night a few of us writers at the retreat were up late and working hard, sharing stories, and it came up again how I had taken a three day bus ride to get to the island, I confessed that I had never really had so much contact with the homeless and that I knew better how I was going to navigate the trip home, though it was still making me anxious. I even did an impersonation at one point of the redheaded polygamist's daughter, Jazz, that was helping her felonious husband flee to Mexico. She had a very distinct accent.

Then, one of the writers, asked if flying out of Savannah would work for me, Friday morning.

!!!!

He bought me a plane ticket home. A plane ticket. This meant instead of 36 hours of cross country starvation on a crowded bus, in possibly another blizzard/ice storm, I would travel for 4 hours and be home by lunch on Friday.

Oh, yes. I cried. I held myself together until I got to my room and then I sobbed like a little baby. I had not realised how homesick I was until that point either, but I imagined my babies jumping into my arms as I set my bags down at the front door and I just cried. I tried to text Chad to tell him, but Isaac was having a nightmare and he couldn't talk or text. I tried calling again the next morning, but he didn't answer.

When I did tell him, I could hear relief in his voice. He knew I could handle the bus again, but getting me home early was so, so welcomed.

Dr. Baxter, your generosity is deeply, deeply felt by my whole family.

*As a funny side note: I have not flown for many years and not since the TSA security thing was developed. So of course I set off all the alarms and had to be searched 3 times, in almost all possible ways, and have my hands chemically analysed. Of course. Why? Forgotten lip balm in my pocket. I had to unpack all my bags and explain it all. Then they stuck their hands in my pants pockets. IN. MY. POCKETS. You know, Megabus didn't even check my id, let alone violate my person.

Still, totally worth it to fly. Totally. Worth. It.

Day Five, Off the Island, the Ghosts of Savannah

As we ate, my sweet tea disappeared.  J.J.'s glass kept getting lipstick prints on it even though she wasn't wearing lipstick. Then the window reflection made it look like there was a 6 ft tall gorgeous drag queen standing behind me laughing and undoing her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders.

All of these things had logical explanations, but we decided it was more fun to think we were dining with the ghosts of Savannah and the ghosts are gloriously fabulous. Good company, all around!



We headed out to walk around town and visited the Telfair Museum, the Mercer House,  and a couple of shops. Mercer House was a tour of no photographs allowed, but the guide was seriously channelling a younger Morgan Freeman, and if you closed your eyes, you would seriously think you were there with a wily Jim Williams and Mr. Freeman. I am not one to talk about specific ghosts and haunting, but I swear Jim was there in the purple room grinning at the whole ordeal. Jen said maybe I was picking up on her mental assessment of how the museum artifacts are being displayed and cared for, which is not up to standards (cabinet holding books, was bowing from the weight of the books among many things).

Jen drove us to Tybee Island for a tromp on the beach. The fog settled in fast. It was suddenly cold!

It was surreal to walk in the fog with the tide rushing in on a near empty, possibly radioactive beach.

So then we headed to find a hotel, sadly, nothing was available. We were left to walk the streets of Savannah when the good and evil may waltz and play together. It was fun! We even found the exact make and model of my first car. A 1953 Chevy, automatic transmission, 4 door, black and chrome.

And of course crossed paths with a ghost tour.

Then exhausted we headed back to the car, no hotel rooms nearer the airport either. We parked in the car and talked until about 3 am, then ate breakfast at the Waffle House.

Oh, did I mention airport? To be continued......