Author: Mark

Remember a few days I told you about Momma Robin? She is hoping to have triplets! Yesterday we discovered it. Today we are going to go check again.

Robins usually stop at four, but if a bird watcher collects her eggs to put in incubators, she may have more! She lays four because they can’t care for many more babies. She will lay eggs until it “feels right” according to an article we read.

The dandelion picture we took after we took the pictures of Momma Robin and her eggs. I thought you might like it. Daddy pays us a cent per lion, so I am collecting them and blowing on them for more pennies! So the dandelions grow and I collect more for my camera that I am working for. Momma says this is called “job security!”

For the last couple of days we have been watching a momma bird to be. So far she has built a nest and laid two eggs! She laid her eggs in a nest in our Redbud Tree.

She is a Robin. Robins have blue eggs and lay their eggs in the morning after sunrise. And after a breakfast of worms, worms, worms, worms. She may lay four eggs.

She will sit on the eggs two weeks and then when they hatch, she will probably be thinking “hungry, hungry, hungry always hungry!”. Baby birds are always hungry!

She will probably tell her kids, “when you grow up I hope you have kids that put you through what you put me through!”

One of her kids will probably say “that’s what Grandpa says he kept on telling you! Say? What’s for breakfast?”

Momma Robin will say, “Worms.”

Another kid will say, “Worms? Again?”

We expect the babies to hatch around the 12th of May! We will keep you posted!

Saturday we were making Maple Syrup because we had the sap and we thought it would be a good science experiment. We read Little House in the Big Woods and it made me, at least, want to make our own maple syrup.

We got the tap last year, but because it was out of season we could not tap our tree.

Well 4 days ago we tapped a tree. Every morning we put the sap in the refrigerator because it’s like milk and spoils easily..

Saturday we boiled it down to Maple Syrup. Hopefully it will end up on some pancakes. We were going to use the smoker but it didn’t stop smoking. 8)

It looked like we were not going to get any more sap because it was too warm. But we did get more, lots more!

Here is the recipe for Maple Syrup.

First you collect the sap from your tree. It needs to be a Maple tree; Sugar and Black Maple work best, but any kind of Maple will do. You get as much as you can, because LOTS of sap equals itsy bitsy bit of syrup.

Then you boil it down until about 219 degrees. It gets darker and the water evaporates. The best place to boil it is outside because the house felt icky doing it inside (Momma said it was all the humidity in the house). We opened the windows to let the humidity out.

Then after it was boiled we let it sit for 12 hours in a cold place. All the sediments (Miss Krista called it Sugar Sand) goes to the bottom. We strained it using a funnel and coffee filters. Straining it took out all the sugar sand and made the syrup look nice.

Then you can it by heating the syrup to over 180 degrees (just before it boils) and pour it carefully into sterilized canning jars. After you pour it you can put the lid on and screw it on tight! We tipped it on the side ’cause the recipe said to. We listened for it to POP! It means they are sealed.

Miss Krista said that the lighter the syrup the better the grade. The grade is only for the color, it does not mean the taste is better. Try the different kinds, see if you like the lighter better or if you like the darker better.

Now we are waiting for some Pancakes!

I can barely wait to try out some of our new, home made Maple Syrup. I think that real Maple Syrup tastes better than store-bought-nothing-has-to-do-with-Maple Pancake Syrup!