It is spring, and the snow is serious about melting, as can been seen from the pictures.

At our home, the advent of spring also means the beginning of maple syrup production!  Thursday morning I gathered the sap from the dozen trees we tapped this year and began boiling.  About 20 litres of sap boiled and boiled and boiled until I was left with about three cups of syrup.  Friday evening we served the syrup on pancakes.  Delicious!

I really enjoy doing this for several reasons.  First, it gives me an excuse to go outside on nice sunny days, as that’s when the sap flows.  Also, it is very much encouraging to have a harvest at this time of year, when nothing has been growing (except the snow piles) for close to half a year.  

A random fact: In 2006, Quebec exported over 30 million litres of syrup, worth over 180 million dollars.  We are pretty sweet people, aren’t we?

Maple syrup is one of the healthiest sweeteners available (and in my opinion, the tastiest).

Percentage of Daily Value (DV) per 60 ml serving (copied from Agriculture Canada):

Psalm 119 verse 103 says, “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”  This is a reminder to me how important the Word of God is in our daily lives.  It must be daily our delight and delectation.  It should be our chief source of joy and pleasure.  But how often do we forget!  May we learn to say with Job, “I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread.” – Job 23:12

   It is my belief that we are currently in the season called “Still Winter.” Snowstorms in March are not uncommon and this year we received a good one – about two feet in less than 24 hours. (And it is only the beginning of March!) As always, this crystaline beauty was received with delight (at least by most). Daddy needed to get to the hospital for 8:00 a.m. to begin his shift, so the four-man snow clearing crew got outdoors bright and early, or perhaps more acurately said, dark and early. Though the car had been parked strategically the night before, it still took 1 1/2 hours to get sufficient snow cleared to drive the vehicle out. (We later learned that the police were actually out on snowmobiles helping in emergencies such as getting ER doctors to the hopital for their shifts.  Daddy missed a ride, though it might have been rather chilly!)

   Having accomplished the first task at hand, the boys left off shovelling until the snow let up a bit, since, at that time, it was still coming down at a rate of an inch and a half an hour.  At 1:30 p.m. the shovelling began in earnest.  The city snowplough had gone by a few times during the morning, leaving a “small” amount of snow at the end of the drive – three feet of heavily packed snow peppered with sand, gravel, and salt.  A big shovel load of that snow could easily weigh a couple hundred pounds.  Needless to say, it was a lot of work to move it all!  The day wore on and progress was made, but even when the crew (with a couple extra members for the last hour or two) came in at 7:00 p.m., there was still a bit of work left.  Nathanael’s car, parked up against the barn was finally free.  The van remains slightly snow covered, but as we need it later today, it will undoubtedly be cleared soon.

   The stark contrast between today’s weather and yesterday’s is almost amazing.  The sun is shining brightly and there is hardly a cloud to be seen.  Except for being just a bit cold (-20 C) this morning it is just the perfect day to be outdoors.  And that is where many of us will be, for Mommy had offically called it a snow day, once French studies and music practice are done!

   And now for the pictures…

What is that object buried in the snow?  Can anyone identify the model and make?

Maybe this picture would help.

Because it is taller and in a different location, the wind blew most of the snow off the van.

Our shovelling crew…

Pictures of today…

   “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24

   For many, the beginning of March issues in spring, but it is not so here in Quebec. Crocuses and daffodils are still a long way off! The outdoors is as snowy as ever, and we are enjoying it! Here are just a few pictures of our snow activities…

   We lack pictures of some of our other skiing excursions, including one with some friends, as well as of an afternoon’s skating on Howard pond in Sherbrooke. Though spring will be welcomed when it arrives, we are making the most of the rest of winter!  I Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  We are thankful for what the Lord has given us right now and will rejoice in it!

   Homeschooling families often have a somewhat different curriculum and schedule from many “ordinary” schools. A primary difference is the innate flexibility for adding abnormal “classes” at a moment’s notice. If a situation arises in which students may learn something new and useful, other things are sometimes dropped in order to allow for an additional class. This past week offered us many such learning opportunities, one of which stood out as more unusual from most. Mommy needed to go out for groceries, but when she tried to start the van, she discovered that a light had been left on all night so that the battery did not have enough charge to turn over the motor. Thankfully, Daddy had not yet left with the car to get to work, so bookwork (which had already begun) was dropped and everyone grabbed their coats and dashed outdoors for an extra-curricular activity! Some of us had watched the procedure of jump-starting a vehicle several times before, but for others this was a new experience.

  We learned where to connect the jumper cables. Daddy instructed us that we are always to start by putting the cables on the dead battery first and then to connect the live one. We also learned that if the black terminal is not accessible, the black wire can be connected to some other part of the frame of the vehicle.

Connected at both ends…

And it’s starting up!

   We thank the Lord for the freedom we have to learn at home. There are so many things we would miss if it weren’t for this privilege. Obviously, the most important of these things is not that we can learn how to jump-start a vehicle. The relationships developed here are invaluable, and since we can’t get away from them and simply find new friends if the others don’t turn out to be our preference, we learn not just to get along, but to enjoy working together. I thank the Lord for our family!

   “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”  Psalm 133:1

Recently, we have had several great times of fellowship.  Monday, the 31st, we had the opportunity of having some friends who are missionaries to Quebec into our home and had a good time of music and fellowship with them.

Sunday, we were graced with the privilege of visiting the Taylor family at their farm.  We were greatly blessed by their warm hospitality and the time of fellowship.  And the food was delicious!    In the afternoon, we were also blessed by the arrival of the Garfats and, much to our surprise and delight, James Staddon, who was visiting the Garfats.

Here are some pictures of the scenery.  On the way there, we passed a snow plow that apparently was getting too ambitious, and decided to clear the ditch.

Several of the guys decided to climb one of the silos and got a view from the top.  It would have been a lot nicer if it had been a clear day.

In the evening Mr. Taylor, accompanied by Daddy, went to pull a smaller snowplow out of a ditch with Mr. Taylor’s tractor, so the rest of us did some sliding.

The evening of Monday, February 7th, we were honoured to have the Garfats and James Staddon for supper.  We had a wonderful visit and were very blessed by the time together!

1 John 1:7
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

All right, I hear tell that there are people out there dying of curiosity because of the post about our talking tree.  It’s OK, you can have one too, if you like, though you might prefer to do it next Christmas.  Talking trees can be quite nice.  Ours actually turned out being more than 10 feet tall, but we then had to cut it shorter so that it could stand up in our house. 

At first glance, it may look like many typical Christmas trees, but a closer examination will reveal that such is not quite the case.  Rather than the typical ornaments found on Christmas trees, this tree’s décor consists of individually created paper decorations, each containing a Biblical passage that touches upon speech.  That is why we called it a talking tree – because each tree ornament was a “talking verse”.  This has become a sort of Christmas tradition for us.  Each year we choose a different topic.  For example, our first nine years were dedicated to covering each of the aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23.  Once the topic is chosen, each person finds verses that go with that topic and makes about half a dozen to a dozen decorations.  You will notice from the pictures that certain individuals prefer the computer’s chirography over their own.

Our hope in having this ornamentation hanging on the tree is that people will read them and think about these verses.  Another result of this kind of decoration is that the Christmas tree stays up much longer than many people’s trees.  We generally don’t take it down until it seriously starts loosing needles.