Bobo's Mountain Sugar

DIscover A Taste of Tree

[bobosmountainsugar]

Winter Peace

Well winter showed up, finally, as we all knew it would. The El Nino-induced extended stick season (the season after the leaves have dropped but before the snow arrives) ended on December 27th with 3" of snow. It was warm up to then, including a sweatshirt-only, Christmas-day hike up Styles Peak in Peru, VT. The sweatshirt being the only orienting indicator of day.

But people around here are worried about the lack of snow, and when you live in an area with four ski mountains and countless people making their living off the industry including those involved with restaurants, hotels, retail, and snow plowing, it's ok to be worried. Although if you've been following the El Nino year science, it's not really a surprise.

An interesting piece from Scientific American that explains how this year is different from other El Nino yearswww.scientificamerican.com/article/how-this-year-s-el-nino-compares-with-the-past/

Personally, Bobo and I are quietly enjoying this mild winter especially after two consecutive whopper winters that even drove the most hardened Vermonters to cry mercy. A whole extra month to split and stack another year's wood, fertilize the garden beds, and cruise the sugarbush fixing lines? Yes please!  A whole extra month of feet in anything but boots, of snow gear in the closets, of not having to use mental space to know (at all times) where the kids hats, mittens, and winter socks are? Oh yeah. And time to finish great projects like this, complete with drawbridge and reinforced birch beams.

Not surprisingly, every single farmer I spoke with during December smiled shyly, and echoed the sentiment.

And some industrious sugar makers around the state, used our "spring-like" December to make syrup! The conditions were perfect: days in the 50s, nights in the 20s. What a run! www.themaplenews.com/story/autumn-blend/21/

People ask me all the time what the warm El Nino winter has in store for the sugaring season. We can't predict, but the thought of a good run in late February and maybe, even, doing some boiling in March, has me ready to get out and tap.

So Happy 2016 from all of us! It's good to be here, in this year, despite it all. I went for a walk with the littles today, skirting the edge of an inhabited beaver pond, and walking swiftly on top of the three inches of hard-packed snow. We built a fire, roasted marshmallow, slid down the ice on the frozen beaver dam, built a tipi, and saw the tracks of snowshoe hare, beaver, moose, and coyote. It's afternoons like this when I breathe in Wendell Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things" and feel hope.

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Peace be to you in 2016.

[bobosmountainsugar]

Friday Afternoon Cider

As anyone who lives in the area knows, this has been an extraordinary year for apple production. It started back in glorious May where there were weeks of dry, warm weather and the apple blossoms stayed on the trees longer than anyone could remember. Trees were humming with pollination. Then there was a month of rain in June which allowed the fruit to set, followed by two months of heat. A “perfect storm” of apple-ness.

By late September hundreds and even thousands of fruit were perched in each tree. Branches were drooping - literally breaking - with the weight.

One medium-sized apple is approximately 95 calories of energy. If one tree has even 500 apples (low-ball estimate on the big trees for sure), then it has around 47,500 calories available to, turkeys, bears, coyotes, deer, squirrels, mice, blue jays, and people: what a gift! Sugar is especially needed during a time of year when everything in the area is hoping to get fat.

Two weeks ago, the Bobo’s crew went on a cider mission. It was time. First, we gathered every large container we could find and then joined forces with Skye’s sister, Carrie, who runs Quoyburray Farm in Weston and has a number of mature apple trees. Our method was simple: drive up to a tree with the truck, climb the tree, shake the tree like a bear, collect the apples that fall on the ground, load apples into truck. We did this to four or five trees on her farm and collected, what appeared to us, to be around 30 bushels of apples. Not a bad morning’s work.

I found out that a bushel of apples weighs 42 lbs and contains approximately 84 large apples or 168 small apples. If we take the average of the two, we collected about 3800 apples or 1250 lbs.

A few days later, we took our weighted-down truck over to the Saturday Nite Cider Company in Andover (the next town over). Saturday Nite is run by Jim and Randi Keith who aren’t yet themselves old-timers but are old enough to know how to do things right. Over the years they put together an amazing cider press that is pure Vermont: smart systems made with ingenuity, thrift, and flair. 

The cider press at Saturday Nite Cider Company.

There, we pressed those 3800 apples into 106 gallons of delicious cider in 4.5 hours. Split between two families, this will keep us in drinking cider for a year plus extra to make into apple cider vinegar and some that will “go bad” on our counter then bottled. 

The beginning of the press where apples are sorted and washed.

The apples go down the shoot into this shopper where they then travel up the conveyer belt

After traveling the conveyer belt, the apples end up in the grinder and get turned into a mash. The mash drops down onto a stainless steel table, wrapped in burlap/canvas. and put into a stack of four with wooden slats in between. Then a hydraulic pump presses a steel plate down onto the stack of mash juicing it. The juice drains through a filter into a 15 gallon holding tank.

Finally a small pump transfers the cider to a canner where we bottle (and drink) it.

The final product!

[bobosmountainsugar]

Year of the Radish

Every garden season I seem to get reacquainted with a vegetable. This is usually something I've eaten my whole life but suddenly find myself gorging on it while thinking that no one has ever loved this vegetable, this "discovery", as much as I do right now. It has happened with eggplant, cauliflower, snap peas, parsley, and now the radish.

I've pickled them, marinated them, fermented them, added them to every salad, and eaten them raw dipped in dressing or humus. They're absolutely perfect. In the newly-found space in the garden, I've planted rows of French Breakfast and Daikon for a fall crop. 

Aside from these rows of radishes and fall crops of spinach, kale, chard etc, the garden is winding down. The potatoes are dug, dry beans shelled, tomato sauce gurgling on the stove, and freezer is filling quickly. There's a sense of order now that wasn't so true in the heat of July. 

As with any year, there were some great successes and some terrific failures. The 2015 bang-up successes include potatoes, squash (both summer and winter), raspberries, onions. The confusing and disappointing failures were cauliflower, artichokes, eggplant, and green cabbage. Everything else did as it okay: there was enough. What caused these failures? I suspect some combination of browsing by voles, aphids, too-early planting, and now lack of water. There is always something that goes awry each year despite all your hopes and effort. It's part of why I love and respect the garden: it’s always as it should be, even through the failures. And it gives me the gift of being surrounded by such calm, peaceful, and tasty perfection. 

But here is why you never, EVER should leave your garden in the heat of August.

Oh, Zucchini. 

[bobosmountainsugar]

Spring Resolutions

Spring is always horribly abrupt season in Vermont, even when - like this year - May is leisurely and warm.

In many parts of the country, April or even March is the transformative month. I look in wonder at Instagram pictures around the country of flowering trees and gardens in early April when outside my window there’s still 2’ of snow on the ground. It truly feels like I’m looking at pictures of another planet. But then comes May, the last of the snow melts in about 48 hours, and everything that is alive seems to go into hyperdrive to catch up. Up high, the maple, poplar, and ash bloom their strange and familiar flowers. Down low, I watch with excitement as the coltsfoot blooms along the side of the road. Then in yards, the crocuses and hyacinth bloom followed closely by daffodils The flowering trees hit: forsythia, apples, cherries, lilac. Tulips succeed the daffodils. In the woods the ephemerals march through their comforting succession: trout lilies, trillium, wild oats, spring beauties, and jack in the pulpit.

Suddenly it’s all gone as though it never happened.

Spring is over in three weeks.

And I’m standing there saying, ”No wait..I missed it...again.”

My forever spring resolution is to be greedy. I resolve to no more be a lazy flower picker, assuring myself that there will be plenty more later. I resolve to pick in abundance, to gather frantically and fill my house with color and fragrance, and new life. I resolve to lie under a flowering tree. I resolve to wade in the thick, loud ephemeral rivers of snowmelt before they dry up by early summer. I resolve to be outside at night to listen to the wood frogs and peepers sing their mating calls. I resolve to take it all for myself. Because after six months of winter, resolutions need to be made.

[bobosmountainsugar]

A Good Year

Bobo is really happy with how the 2015 season turned out. So are we. He came by the other day to see how clean up was going (slowly) and tasted some of the syrup. "Good year," was all he said. Here are some stats from the season:

Number of gallons of maple syrup made: 790 gallons

Number of boils: 19 boils

Date of first boil: March 12

Date of last boil: April 17

Number of boils in April: 15

Gallons of sap collected and boiled: approximately 41,000 gallons

Average sugar content of sap: 1.48%. It went as high as 2% in the middle of the season and as low as 0.7% at the beginning and the end.

Cords of wood burned: 8

While we finished off the rest of the sap in the pans and cleaned the pans, we still have taps to remove. I have to say that I'm looking forward to getting back into the woods without snow and with an eye for spring ephemerals. Bobo will be up there too.

[bobosmountainsugar]

Don't Let Your Monday Ruin Your Sunday

There are as many different sugarhouses and operations as there as sugar makers. Everyone has a different scale, number of taps, evaporator set up, technology use, and aesthetic/culture at their spot. On a recent visit to Bobo's, our friend Sugar Bob quipped that all sugarhouses are the same."There's always a bunch of people standing around talking and drinking and one person - looking nervous - checking levels and reading thermometers," How true. So when Sugar Bob had his "skunk boil" Sunday afternoon, we decided to go and let someone else be the person reading the thermometers.

We had had our skunk boil on Friday and had closed shop. Skunk boils involve murky sap, uncooperative equipment, and an earthy smell that invades your nostrils telling you sugaring season is officially over. While Sugar Bob's operation is less than ten miles from ours, he uses buckets and has some cold northern bushes that give out decent sap late season. So he was still in the game.

Sunday was as gorgeous as could be. Even this late in the season, sugarhouses are community. Bouncing down muddy roads, people gather to celebrate spring.

Sugar Bob makes great syrup but his signature signature is an incredible Smoked Maple Syrup. While you may not want to put it on your pancakes, it is our go-to item for any bbq sauce, marinade, special sauce, or secret ingredient in stews/soups. Check it out and purchase some here http://www.sugarbobsfinestkind.com/

The Sugarhouse with Disco Ball.

Merchandise rack.

Pot luck table.

Evaporator at Sugar Bob's.

The Rules. #3 A promise made in the sugarhouse does not need to be kept.

Plumb Jane.

Tanks and buckets.

Uncle Harry making tea.

Sugar Bob and crew.

"Don't let your Monday ruin your Sunday." - Shawna Batogowsi

[bobosmountainsugar]

Foragers Market on Bobo's

http://foragersmarket.com/bobos-farm-fresh-mountain-sugar/

[bobosmountainsugar]

Porcupine Tracks

After two weeks, the snow has finally settled into a manageable snowpack. We're going to wind up tapping this week and movement in the sugarbush has eased up from an over-the-kneep-flail-fest to a fairly easy snowshoe. For those two weeks of bitter cold and drifting snow, there was almost no animal movement. They, too, knew how compromising it was to expend energy in those conditions. It's only now that I've seen tracks of coyote, mouse, and one lone moose traverse Bobo's Mountain.

However, one animal wasted no time getting out of their den into the deep snow and start feeding on meager cambium and hemlock needles: the North American Porcupine. There have always been porcupine on the mountain the but this winter they seem to be more noticeable. Perhaps it's been the absence of other animal tracks or maybe their population has increased. Whatever the reason, their impact has been significant.

The first thing I noticed were their tracks. They don't make tracks per se, more like hollowed out waddle grooves in the snow. Porcupines are not known for their height or their grace, so as they waddle out in the snow, they use the same tracks over and over. Like me in my snowshoes.

From these paths, you can easily find their dens, usually a hole in rocks well marked with urine and scat. 

Porcupines are nocturnal and have an amazing survival strategy that involves scary barbed quills up to 4" long and eating some of the least nutritional foods in some of the coldest climates. They move slowly (hence the quills) and survive the winter eating cambium from trees (the living layer of tissue under the tree's bark) and conifer needles. They can do exceptional damage to trees like this spruce by stripping bark off, essentially killing it.

Now I'm delighted that the porcupines are clearing spruce out of my sugarbush, but porcupines are also known to like maple trees. So I've been watching them carefully and they seem to have a sense of where they are. Maybe it's their careful high stepping over low-lying tubing or their choice of trees, but so far they seem to know the rules: no chewing on lines and no killing maple trees. We'll see what happens when the sap flows.

[bobosmountainsugar]

Tapping Backpack

Tapping trees is well underway on Bobo's Mountain. We have to carry a lot of gear to be ready for any repair work on the tubing. Here's a peek inside:

Clockwise from top:

1. Trusty backpack now filled with holes from drill bits and knives

2. Extra 5/16" tubing

3. 5/16" connectors to connect tubing together

4. Extra drop lines to replace any drops that are squirrel chewed or moldy (I usually cary 10-15 of these at a time)

5. One-handed tubing tool to put fittings and tube together

6. Red electrical tape to cover small holes in tubing

7. Knife

8. Felco snips (my favorite all-season tool)

9. Extra 5/16" drill bits

10. Saddle fittings for replacing any ones that are damaged 

11. Tap hammer: held from a rope around my wrist

12. 5/16" polycarbonate taps: carried 25-30 at a time in my left pocket

13. Two-handed tubing tool for putting in new drop lines

14. SNACKS: critical and often containing chocolate or fancy nut butters

15. Makita drill: usually held from a sling around my shoulders

16. Extra drill batteries

Not pictured: water bottle, extra gloves

The pack's weight usually exceeds 12 lbs, which isn't too heavy unless you've fallen over backwards, downhill, on your snowshoes in 2' of snow. Then the pack feels like it's 30 lbs and the dead weight will prevent you from ever standing upright again. 

[bobosmountainsugar]

The Snow Made Us Do It

The arrival of Big Snow puts the hustle on us. The triage begins on the outdoor projects. For some projects, like picking up all the kids’ strewn-about stuff in the yard or ‘putting to bed’ the rest of the gardens, the thought of them being buried under feet of snow for the next four months is delightful. The toy tractors, bows and arrows, and Rudbeckia never existed and will not require thought or action until late April.

But for other projects, Big Snow means immediate action: putting all other daily chores and responsibilities aside, as suddenly there are mere hours to get accomplished what we had been putting off all fall. This week that meant 1) hiking the sugarbush and sawing the downed trees across tubing and 2) stacking the rest of the woodpile. 

Less than a month ago the woods were open and fast; it was easy enough to find and map the trouble trees fallen across tubing. 

However when up to 2' of wet heavy snow is expected, those trees become as buried as the toy tractors. Backpacks, chainsaws, duct tape, snacks and out we go. 

Now to the woodpile. The last four cord of wood moved and stacked as the snow flew. 

Why the hustle now? It's not as though there wasn't snow on the ground. We have had a few inches on the ground since Thanksgiving. But there's something about November snow that doesn't seem permanent. And there's something about a big sloppy nor'easter the second week of December that does seem permanent. Everyone knew in their guts that this was it.

And we were right. 18" on the ground and still falling, power still out as of this writing. Trees down and now everything turning to ice. 

We could dry ourselves off and congratulate each other. "We got that done just in time," we could say. But really, the snow made us do it. 

[bobosmountainsugar]

Dark Days

The Dark Days are here. With only 10.5 hours between sunrise and sunset, our days will continue to shrink until we're at the yawn-inducing sub-9 hours in December. There's a noticeable intensity out there. It's a different intensity than the manic daylight-filled days of June where six hours of sleep seems more than enough and we marvel at the tremendous amount we can fit in each day. 

The animals are moving - driven by the intense need to get fat and find a cozy place to sleep. I can relate. These are the days where I seriously consider eating a grilled cheese before crawling under the down comforter at 8pm and where 11 hours of sleep seems perfectly reasonable. 

The birds are flocking to the meadows to eat the grass and wildflower seeds. Turkeys and deer are moving through the oak and beech thickets finding the fatty acorns and beechnuts. And the squirrels are eating the decorative corn right off the porch.

And I don't even want to get into the mouse situation which, by all accounts, is out of the control perhaps due to two years of long-lasting snowpack where mice get to hide from predators. Suffice to say, we can't keep up.

This has been a great year for apples. The two apple trees outside the house were bursting, and I was eyeing the harvest with interest. But we missed our chance because we woke up one morning to apple branches on the ground and claw marks in the tree. 

A black bear came and, in one night, ate probably 75% of the apples in both trees. And while apple trees are notoriously tough (they can survive getting browsed almost down to the ground), this bear chewed branches right off, pruning the tree for us. 

But that's alright. The bear needs the apples more than we do and besides, we can get more. Not to mention, there's no fruit I love more right now than these late-season raspberries. Long live the Dark Days!

[bobosmountainsugar]

Season of the Snake

This summer the three-year olds have been preoccupied with snakes: snake drawings, snake bedtime stories, snake photos, snake ecology. And understandably so, as there's nothing more exciting, terrifying, and mystifying than a snake even for a three-year old who isn't aware of all our snake mythology. We've looked at photos of constrictors who've succeeded in consuming a crocodile, snakes which blind by shooting venom, and the densely-populated, super-eerie snake dens. Even for me, very few animals make me jump and even give a little yelp when I come across one slithering ahead of me in the grass. And I like snakes.

To catch more sightings, we set up snake boards on the stone walls near our gardens and pond.

The snakes come out of their stone wall homes and curl up on the warm sun-heated stones under the protection of the snake boards. Then to their annoyance, the three-year olds come visit, lifting the boards in search of one.

Often the snake boards look like this: empty or cricket filled.

But it's not unusual to see one like we did this morning.

And since I've spent some time looking in field guides this summer I know this is a ring-necked snake, a small gray snake with a yellow belly and a pretty yellow ring around its neck. The other snake we tend to see is the common garter snake. We have at least two garters of significant size fattening themselves, hopefully, on the voles in our garden. And I'm pretty sure there's a milk snake in the area, although I've haven't seen him/her for a couple of years.

There's a good website listing all the herps in Vermont with pictures, maps, and ecology information- The Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas  http://community.middlebury.edu/~herpatlas/ This is a great resource for figuring out what snakes are in the stone walls and what frogs are in the pond.

[bobosmountainsugar]

Farewells

On the Mountain today we are saying a fond farewell to Vermont Fancy, Medium Amber, and Dark Amber. Yes, with the arrival this week of the new cap stickers, we are officially joining the new era of maple syrup grade names.

Different grade names across each state and Canada left consumers confused about what grade of syrup to buy and how they differ. Last year the entire industry agreed to standardize the grade names, and Vermont is the first state to make the change official. Vermont producers have until January 2015 to change the grade names on their syrup. So today, we're now on board. Yay!

For those of you who know that, say, Dark Amber is your favorite syrup and are now wondering what to get, here's a cheat sheet:

Vermont Fancy is now: Golden Color and Delicate Taste

Medium Amber is now: Amber Color and Rich Taste

Dark Amber is now: Amber Color and Rich Taste

Grade B is now: Dark Color and Robust Taste

Commercial Grade (beyond B we like to call it) is now: Very Dark Color and Strong Taste

Overall I'm happy with this change. It's easier for consumers to know what they're purchasing, all grades of syrup are now Grade A, and commercial grade/beyond b can be sold retail when, prior to this year, it wasn't allowed.

However there are a couple of drawbacks. Golden Color/Delicate Taste is actually lighter than Vermont Fancy which means that it's going to be harder to make. It certainly favors larger producers who have vacuum, cold storage, and major reverse osmosis operations. These producers can keep sap cold and produce high sugar contents in their sap through big ROs which means it becomes syrup faster creating a lighter color.

The combining of Medium and Dark Ambers into one grade of Amber Color/Rich Taste means that this grade will likely dominate the industry. Not a bad thing for sure, but as some years won't produce as much Golden Color/Delicate Taste (like this year) or Dark Color/Robust Taste (like last year), Amber Color/Rich Taste will be the steady eddy.

We're cheerfully embracing the change here, and will be framing some of the old cap stickers for sugarhouse nostalgia.

Note: thank you again to Marin Horikawa of Moderate Breeze Designs for the design brilliance and to The Sticky Brand for the printing. Both are located in Burlington, Vermont.

[bobosmountainsugar]

Special Shade of Cool

Autumn gets all the glory in Vermont. People travel hundreds of miles to see the truly amazing red and orange foliage. There's speculation for weeks about whether or not this will be a good foliage season or whether or not we've hit "peak foliage" and tens-of-thousands of photos are taken across the state. The spectacle is absolutely stunning. 

Every spring, right about now in the deep part of May, I am thrown by the spring foliage. Perhaps it's the shock of seeing the color green after so many months of seeing just white, brown, grey, and the occasional blue. The change of color can be truly blinding and disorienting. 

But who knew there were so many different shades of green? How is it that there is such range of textures and the subtle differences of color across this wild green spectrum? It's as if a box of green crayons exploded across the hills - only better. It's a unbelievable show, and Vermonters tend to have it all to themselves because by mid-June, the colors will have evened out into "hot-summer green," but right now every species has its own special shade of cool. 

http://bobosmountainsugar.com/

[bobosmountainsugar]

Snow Melt Fast

The snow is more-or-less gone. It seems odd to be saying this like, perhaps, it's not, but there are still little pockets in dark hemlock stands, on the north sides of some buildings, and along roads where it was piled up high in banks. It also indicates how cold March and April were: March barely above freezing and even today, May 5, waking up to 37F and raining.

So while the leaves still haven't flushed out and the spring ephemerals are slow to cover Bobo's Mountain, there is an up-side. Mud season was once again a non issue, something Vermonters do not take for granted. We notice it. Because when it's bad - like it was in 2012 - it is bad. 

And then I think maybe (just a hopeful maybe) the cold will reduce the black-fly population that's about to hatch.

In general, when the snow melts, it melts fast. There's some tipping point in the snow structure, heat absorption, and sun strength that makes it go. I was able to monitor it this year thanks to a Sharpie and a pea trellis. 

From March 27 to April 8 the snow melted 18" in 11 days, Of course this was a south-facing garden. On April 8, there was still 2 feet of snow in the woods. Here's the breakdown:

Date                             Snow Melt in Inches                  % Melted

March 27-29                 3.5                                                  19.4%

March 29-30                 1.75                                                 9.7%

March 30-April 1          0.75                                                  4.1%

April 1-2                        1                                                      5.6%

April 2-3                       1.5                                                    8.3%

April 3-4                       1.75                                                  9.7%

April 4-6                       1.5                                                    8.3%

April 6-7                       1                                                       5.6%

April 7-8                       5.25                                                 29.2%

On average the snow melted 1.63" a day or 9% of its total. 

I wonder how fast this little guy grows? Fast enough that we could tap it in 2024. Now that's a growth rate. http://bobosmountainsugar.com/

[10engines]

[bobosmountainsugar]

Thanks for posting 10e. Still trying to catch up!

[bobosmountainsugar]

Reflections on a Season

The 2014 season has ended. We boiled for the last time on Monday afternoon - pushing thick sap through the pans, clogging the filter press every few draws, and making super-strong, super-dark syrup. Blackjack syrup or Black Gold: one of Bobo's favorites.

Syrup made: 550 gallons, a 35% decrease from last year. A lot of dark syrup.

Sap boiled: ~ 34,000 gallons.

Sugar content of sap: varied through the season but averaged 1.4%.

Number of boils: 16

Amount of wood used: 10 cords.

Sap ran: 26 days.

Season started: March 29 - while there was a quick small run for three days in early March, the sap never truly ran until the 29th, making it the latest start in recent memory. "Like the Old Days," they said.

Season ended: April 21.

In General: Our experience seemed to mirror that across the region: super-late start, average production year, mucho dark syrup made. The Guys at the equipment stores said that even the light syrup tasted dark. Producers with a vacuum system seemed to fare better than those without. Sugar makers just running buckets or gravity lines might have had a poor season while those with vacuum systems veered more towards average. The Guys were okay with it though; they had already sold a few vacuum pumps by the time I'd talked with them. 

On the Mountain: We knew how good we had it last year with brand new equipment and fresh tubing in the woods. This year, everything was less tight, more leaky, less efficient. Need to step up woods work and equipment maintenance in 2015.

Hard to predict and while we certainly want to be ready for an early March run, it wasn't really necessary to be tapped out the last week in February.

You can never clean the pans too often. Once it gets warm, sap gets the funk. We had to dump much of the sap in our back pans twice. Remember learning in biology class how bacteria replicates exponentially? This demonstration would win ribbons. 

Once again, I am reminded how closely held we are to the winter-spring transition. We begin in the woods in deep-winter February. The first boils are cold, quiet ones - wearing jackets and hats. Everything is still frozen solid. By the end we're boiling with the doors open in T-shirts listening to the Red Sox, water run down the hill, and the wood frogs in the pond. Soon I'll be back in the woods with sneakers and bug spray watching the spring ephemeral flowers pop off the mountains. 

There is nothing subtle about this transition. I love being pulled through it covered in sticky syrup.