Any guesses at the name of this flower?
What’s this?
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Sugar on snow
Sugaring off is a traditional spring event here in Quebec. Since we just do it as a family, we go really small scale and boil a couple cans of maple syrup on our stovetop. It is a fun (and sticky!) time. David and Erica and their two girls joined us, increasing the enjoyment. Too little to get involved with the sticky stuff, Keziah just played peek-a-boo in her stroller.
Elizabeth, however, got to join in and loved it!
Yum!
This is sticky!
Some milk after so much sweet
Everyone enjoyed their day too!
Daddy’s little girl – all cleaned up!
As we savoured the maple sugar, I thought of the verse in Psalm 119:103: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Yes, the Word is sweeter even than maple syrup!
Spring is in the air!
It seems as though winter never arrived this year. Sure, we got bits of snow all along, in fact we’re expecting a bit more tonight, but we received none of those get-you-stuck-in-your-driveway storms and the piles that usually mound up during snow removal season were only a few feet tall at most.
Yet despite winter’s non-arrival, spring is just around the corner! The birds are returning: Canada geese fly overhead regularly, mallard ducks were seen today, song birds in large numbers show up at the feeders.
purple finch
chickadee
pine siskin
song sparrow
The red-winged blackbirds and robins have not yet been caught by my camera, but they are around as are the less colourful starlings and grackles. The squirrels too have been feasting on the seed the birds drop. They are cute little creatures and quite friendly too!
Everyone is enjoying the longer days and warm sunshine… including the cat!
Saturday, several of us tuned up our bikes and went out for a short ride. It was a lovely day for it: bright sun and no wind!
Meanwhile, the guys were busy solving a computer issue… It looked complicated.
And then yesterday, we had a special event to commemorate the coming of spring, but I’ll tell of that another time… 🙂
Ride’m Cowgirl!
Well, maybe not quite a cowgirl… but Elizabeth certainly had fun riding a friend’s pony last week!
Waving to Grandma T in the window! 🙂
And as a side-note: there is usually still snow around in Quebec at the beginning of March! We have had an extraordinarily warm winter this year and spring is arriving early!
Canadien à l’extrème!
Or is it that he can’t wait for summer?
Having fun!
Usually it is Caleb’s Daddy who takes him out on the 4-wheeler, but today it was Auntie Evelyn. They sure look like they’re having fun!
A Frazer update
Looking through pictures is usually a good way of finding just what we have been doing, but this time there were remarkably few revelatory photos. After all, who goes about shooting a dripping bathroom drain, a leaking faucet, another leaking faucet, broken stove tops, a non-functional oven, water coming into the basement due to to much ice outdoors, and a river flowing through the barn for the same reason? Yes, we really had all of those in the past month or two! But the Lord is providing solutions for which we are grateful.
But the photos didn’t reveal that angle of life. Primarily what I find here are the joys of little ones! They are so special!
Keziah smiles so much!
Elizabeth loves her little sister
Reading to several little ones
Evelyn and I recently embarked on some large projects: Making quilts! It is slow work, but I’m sure it will be rewarding in the end!
Figuring out colours
Consulting the expert
This winter has been an odd one with little snow and many thaws. The driveway literally became an ice rink. William got out his skates!
As always, the outdoors draws cameras like a magnet. Numerous birds gather at our feeders… Can anyone tell I like chickadees? 🙂
And a few excursions draw out the beauties of our northern winter – despite the pathetically small amount of snow!
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24
A Young Stenographer
There is nothing like starting young…
Yeah, this looks like fun!
What exactly am I supposed to do?
Read the textbook, of course!
OK, I know it all now!
This key is an important one.
All done! I finished your homework, Aunt Sarah!
Hoppy Birthday!
Stephen has taken a liking to rabbits recently…
Hoppy Birthday, Stephen!
May God bless you abundantly in the coming year!
Finally winter
Have you ever had a secondhand Christmas tree? We hadn’t until this year… but I’ll hold that for a moment.
Since the birth of Keziah, much has taken place, but for my part, few photos have been taken. In fact, much to my chagrin, I discovered that though I photographed a dress made for Keziah, I took no pictures of my precious niece until yesterday! (That picture will come a little later.)
Another arrival, though much less cute than Keziah, was a baby Flemish giant rabbit. Smokey is very friendly and hopefully will make a good mother one day. (And no, she’s not usually in the house!)
The Christmas season slipped by in a hurry and January came upon us almost unawares. Part of the cause for this was perhaps the fact that it hardly felt like Christmas. After an early snow in October, no more arrived, in fact the weather turned unseasonably warm so that on the 24th, when we did our traditional Christmas concerts at the nursing homes, none of us brought jackets with us and several were in short sleeves!
Notwithstanding, the Christmas spirit reigned indoors with Christmas carols playing, Christmas lights shining, Christmas baking… and of course the Christmas tree! A used one. Usually Stephen is the guy for finding things in big garbage, but he wasn’t the one to reclaim this object. When picking Jonathan up from work right before his holiday began, Mommy observed that the company Christmas tree acquired some weeks before was gone. She learned from Jonathan that it had been taken down because no one would be in to water it for two weeks. So, a team was dispatched to rescue the tree from beside the garbage bin. It was a laughable event: never since we have lived in this location has there been such a bushy Christmas tree in our living room! It was fun, though, and Caleb helped to decorate.
And then, the week after Christmas, the snow finally arrived! And so did the cold!
But we enjoyed getting out to play in it. 🙂
Yesterday, the rain returned. Though it didn’t wash away the snow, it did keep the young people indoors during and after our monthly men’s meeting. To keep the young ones occupied, a game was produced: a several dozen little “prizes” (little pencils, erasers, chocolates, etc.) were wrapped up within a huge ball of cellophane. In only a few seconds, each player had to unwrap as much cellophane as possible in order to get at these prizes. When their time was up, they had to pass the ball along to the next person. Since the objects were scattered throughout the ball, each participant got multiple treats. The kids loved it! And the adults enjoyed watching and helping out where an extra hand was needed. It was wonderful to see how the children helped each other!
And of course the really little ones played at other things…
and wondered if the ice cream was really supposed to be left out for two hours…
and were cuddled… 🙂
