Maple Sap

the maple tree is so bountiful....the smallest nick, and sweet watery sap comes trickling out

Pounding the spile (yes, it has a name! And yes, that's how it's spelled)

duct tape to deter squirrels and curious pedestrians

awaiting the first maple syrup harvest on our urban farm!

Every year in late February and early March, we begin to think about maple syrup. Our one and only maple tree has a permanent gash partway up the trunk which leaks sap onto the sidewalk. The insects love it. Seeing it dripping from the tree, I always think, "What a waste, what a waste!"

This year we decided that no matter how few scant tablespoons of syrup we get, we're going to harvest our sap. After all, it's ours!

We'll see how it goes. It's been such a warm spring, I worried that the sap will spoil before we can pour it off.

Spools

Here's a little project for a toddler.

We dyed the wooden spools in food colouring (didn't really take) and kool aid (really took) in a rainbow of spring colours.

Some of them are very old and have great industrial stamping on the side. I love the ones that say "Made in Canada"!

But these are Matthias's toys, not mine.

As the toddler in a large, home schooling family, Matthias is frequently short-changed. I'm trying to be mindful of him and give him new things to do each day (besides cutting up important tax documents with scissors).

That's bread, not beads, that he's stuffing in his mouth.

We gave him a shoe lace with a knot in one end. (Don't mind that he's covered in food. It was lunch time, you know!)

One more thing for a busy baby to do!

Stirrings...

March is an old man,

Old and cold

Grey beard and weary

         - Elsa Beskow

The boys love this picture (from our favourite book about the seasons, Elsa Beskow's Around the Year) because as William said, "Winter is so old, he's almost dead!"

And truly, winter has abated to just a few lumps of ice under the long grass, a few patches of snow under the trees.

waiting...

For almost a month, they've been asking me, "Will it be spring tomorrow?" It's a difficult concept to explain. Spring comes in little fits and starts, doesn't it? Freezing at night, warm in the morning. A snowstorm here, a pussy-willow there.

The tiniest little lemon-balm leaves! Hello, darlings.

A little mythology helps. (We love silly Mrs. Thaw from Ollie's Ski Trip by Elsa Beskow. I have a feeling that the boys actually believe she exists.)

beds are mulched...

But this year, we really did wake up one morning to find Spring outside! Yesterday it was snowing, today it is robins and tee shirts!

The wind is exquisite.

Boots! Mud!

Babies who nap outside!

Children who roam at large!

searching for junk! I mean treasure!

swinging form trees!

Big plans for sticks and rocks!

There are stirrings in the air and soil. There are stirrings inside my sons: They want to build, to roam, to discover! 

William is constructing a fire pit in the back yard, and we have various exciting garden projects underway! Well, exciting to me. I get really excited about sticks.  

Maluka Shawl

What the world mostly looks like, these days.

Proof that blocking really works! After being dunked in water and pinned to the couch for a few hours, that big bundle of orange granny knitting was transformed into a pretty, hip, lacy scarf. I officially approve. Though I'm still iffy about the color. I think it's an October scarf not a March scarf.

And I need a shawl pin. I've been using a wooden hair stick, which is every bit as dangerous as it sounds.

The maluka shawl is a lovely free pattern—check it out here.

March

"March brings breezes loud and shrill

To stir the dancing daffodil"

-traditional

No daffodil's here to speak of, but the sun is warm and the snow is abating!

A Gown for Baby Rafe

I wish I had the kind of camera lens that could capture the look and feel of silk.

Rafe's gown was an old, Chinese table-cloth. I had to cut around a number of embroidered dragons. I like dragons and all, but they didn't seem quite baptismal, somehow.

The handwork is exquisite (the original artist's, that is....my tailoring happened after midnight with crossed eyes and a seam-ripper between my teeth.)

The sheen and drape is beautiful, though by the time I got to the photo-shoot it had gotten rather rumpled. It wasn't intended to be ahem crawled in!

And anyway, Rafe, who said you could start moving around on your tummy? I didn't give you permission to grow! Haven't you been listening to anything I say? I said stay a baby!

Raphael, Receive the light of Christ!

"Raphael and Tobias" by Michael O'Brien.
 Raphael is named for the angel Raphael in the book of Tobit.

Raphael was baptized last weekend. 

I am always so profoundly humbled and moved by this ritual, every time.

It was the traditional baptism of the Latin Rite...incredibly beautiful, and almost never used anymore, although it is the universal rite of baptism in the Catholic Church.

The prayer begins outside the church (the foyer, in our case, as it was so cold and windy that day)...

Priest: Receive the Sign of the Cross both upon your forehead + and also upon your heart +; take to you the faith of the heavenly precepts; and so order your life as to be, from henceforth, the temple of God.

Priest: Accipe signum Crucis tam in fronte, quam in corde, sume fidem cælestium præceptorum: et talis esto moribus, ut templum Dei iam esse possis.

Priest: Receive the Sign of the Cross both upon your forehead + and also upon your heart +; take to you the faith of the heavenly precepts; and so order your life as to be, from henceforth, the temple of God.

Priest: Accipe signum Crucis tam in fronte, quam in corde, sume fidem cælestium præceptorum: et talis esto moribus, ut templum Dei iam esse possis.

There is so much depth to the symbolism of the entire ritual: the salt (tasting the nourishment of Christ), the oil (for healing and kingly anointing) and of course the water (for spiritual cleansing and rebirth).

Priest: Raphael, ego te baptizo in nomine + Patris, et Filii, +, et Spiritus + Sancti.

(If you want, you can read the rest of the Latin Rite of baptism here.)

Raphael, my beautiful, innocent baby, right now you don't know about the ugliness of sin. Your heart is wide open and beautiful. But as you get older, you'll realize how much we need the mercy of God! May the grace of your baptism flow like a river in your heart, from the endless source that is the in-dwelling Trinity, the fountain of everlasting life.

I feel a little...shy...sharing baptism pictures here, but don't think you can get away without seeing sewing pictures! I made Rafe a little gown....out of a table cloth...and it's definitely exciting. Silk,  old. (More of that to come.)