This year the blog will revive its photo celebration of the northern hardwoods ephemerals, the flowers that bloom on the forest floor after the last sap run and before the canopy fills in and shuts out the sunlight. Here is the front of a card created and printed by neighbor Heather Hale on one of… Read More
Music to Boil By
12:30am. When I walked out of the sugarhouse after 16 hours of work, the greater world expanded in stillness below a full moon, but just until I noticed how clouds chased across the moon, how urgently Miller Brook bellowed from the bottom of the valley, and how cool air emanated from the snowbank. … Read More
Not Your Everyday Oatmeal Cookies
Maple Trout Lilli writes of just the ticket for a cold, rainy day in April: MAPLE GLAZED OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES A jazzed-up maple cookie with a delectable maple glaze that is a rich compliment to this sweet spicy cookie. I kept the batter in the fridge and made a batch of 12 every day… Read More
Where is Spell Check?
OOPS: Whose nest is this?
Maple Cardamom Glazed Salmon
The blog’s food correspondent Maple Trout Lilli writes: First, a little history on this very-unique-not-often-used spice we’ve pared with maple syrup. Did you know that: In ancient Eastern medical traditions, cardamom could cure a sore throat, teeth and gum infections, congestion, tuberculosis, stomach, kidney, and lung problems, and also be used as an antidote… Read More
March, Round Two
WEATHER: First it snowed for three days, then the sun came out and drew everyone outdoors for three shimmering days, then the air warmed enough on the first day of spring to wake up the trees, then the clouds moved in along with snow and plummeting temps, and today the sun returned and the… Read More
Sunday Caption Corner
SUNDAY NITE AT THE MOVIES: Sugarmakers made the most of the Big Thaw of February, and this past week COO and the Hutchins brothers (who grew up climbing on our wood pile, next worked crew for many years, and now sugar in Caledonia County) made the most of the Pi Day Snowstorm. Here is Ben… Read More
Sunday Caption Corner
SUNDAY NITE AT THE MOVIES: Christian T. (woods crew 2015, 2016) sends along his take on the tapping beat. https://vimeo.com/207681940 SUNDAY CAPTION CORNER/MYSTERY PHOTO: What does this photo bring to mind? Or, what is it? [HINT: This photo was taken in the sugarhouse.]
Hill Report: Gold for the Soul
Here is a dispatch from Joe Renish who joined the woods crew this season: Hill Report: Clomp, clomp, swoosh. Clomp, clomp, swoosh. The slog up from the sugarhouse is arduous as the snowfall accumulation this winter has been nothing short of bountiful. A few precise strides give way to a snowshoe-devouring collapse of the… Read More
Sunday Caption Corner
WHAT WE GOT TO TALKING ABOUT IN THE SUGARHOUSE: On Thursday, Becca and I stood on the back side of the pans peering through the steam at the lineup of syrup samples on the light box. We fill one bottle at the end of each boiling day. No two daily bottles are precisely identical. When… Read More
The Nebraska Knoll Blog 