Springs arrival - sweet!

Good morning everyone and thank you for all the lovely Easter greetings I received from you this past weekend. I hope you all enjoyed your weekend as much as we did. Despite a drop in temperature over the weekend, we had a sunny day and enjoyed the company of good friends and family as we shared a meal. I had so much fun preparing my meal this year as my sons, Dan and Chris, stepped into the kitchen to help chop, dice, and slice the various ingredients for our meal. Bob prepared a fabulous leg of lamb! Chris is vegetarian so the two of us put together an awesome vegetable and chickpea stew. Following the meal the men cleared table, loaded the dishwasher and washed up the remaining pots so that I could sit and enjoy my coffee with my friends. Thanks guys! I really appreciated the help and enjoyed having your company throughout the day. I was thinking how different it was from when they were young and would step into the kitchen to ask, "Is it done yet? When are we going to eat?" Then they would conveniently disappear when it came time to clear the table and do dishes!

The preparations and many services during Holy Week left little time for stitching. I sing in my husband's church choir and we were gone from home from Thursday right through until Sunday evening in addition to many rehearsals prior to that. The only time for our meal was on Easter Monday. Between services I did manage to squeeze in a little stitching time on Viktor and Irina. 

I'm enjoying this one soooo much! I've only run into one problem so far. The called for DMC 950 for the blooms on 3 little flowers is not showing up at all. If you click on the picture and look at it closeup you'll see what I mean. When I look at the original that comes with the pattern, they don't show up either. I tried doing one with a slightly darker shade and it looked awful. I'm thinking of swapping out the colour to a yellow or gold of some sort. Any other ideas or suggestions? I'm just getting started on stitching the lamb next. I've put in the first few stitches on his ear just below the second flower.

I'm heading out to my Wednesday afternoon group today and I think I'll pull out something I haven't touched in ages..... Paradis Perdu! Yup, it's still hanging around and I don't think I've touched it for a year now. Definitely time to get this beauty out once more. I've also chosen my ornament for the April Ornament SAL. Once again I've chosen a Prairie Schooler and I've gone with a spring theme. Sorry but I just couldn't stitch a Christmas ornament when the sun is shining so brightly and our snow is almost gone. This little fellow dropped by this morning to sing a spring song for us.

The arrival of spring also means its time for a visit to the sugar bush!
For those of you who are not familiar with this tradition, the sugar bush refers to a group of Sugar Maple trees which have been tapped to collect sap for the production of maple syrup. When my children were young, each spring we would drive to our favourite sugar bush just over the Ontario border and into Quebec. Now there is one just down the road from our home! The photos below are of my granchildren on their visit to the sugar bush in Quebec.

A horse drawn wagon takes you out into the bush to see the taps on the maple trees with their buckets collecting sap. The sap flows in mid March to April, when the days are mild and the nights freezing. In a major operation, plastic tubing carries the sap through the bush, back to the shack where it is boiled down to produce the syrup. It takes 40 gallons of sap to produce just one gallon of maple syrup! 

The wagon follows the lines back to the evaporation shack where you can see the sap boiled down into syrup. One of the biggest treats of the visit is when they pour some of the syrup onto the remaining snow and then wrap the resulting taffy onto a stick. Mmmm, mmmm! 

The visit to the bush is usually followed by a meal of bacon, eggs, sausage, beans and pancakes all drenched in maple syrup. We usually have to peel the kids off the ceiling after all that sugar, lol! Ah, but it's only once a year, right? 

At some shacks, they have music and dancing as well. I can remember hearing traditional French folk songs at the sugar bush we used to take the kids to. If you've never been and the opportunity presents itself, go! It's a fun filled day with memories that I know my grown children have never forgot. 

Have a sweet week!