Ramblings

Most of the time I like to have a single theme for a blog post but I have a number of unrelated subjects today so this is "Ramblings". I could have titled it Sunday morning missive which I used to email to you all but it is neither Sunday morning nor is it an email although most of my followers will get this post by email.

Glass shard that was in Jonathan's thumb for a month

When Jonathan came home on March 8, Lois helped him pull a small splinter of glass from his thumb. A week later when he returned here from his trip to Seattle and Southern CA his thumb was still bothering him. A few days later he saw a doctor in West Lafayette who dug around for a while but couldn't find anything. Today he sent a picture which I've blown up here so you can see the shard he says "popped out" last evening. It was in his thumb for about a month. We're almost as glad as he is that it's out.

Happy Birthday Eldon! I asked Grammy this morning why this day was important for Eldon and she couldn't remember. I'm sure she was aware of it 66 years ago!  When Pappy was 66 (1984) they were living at Cochranville and he was still working full time selling spreaders - I think.

2013 maple syrup

Last weekend we finished up our maple syrup season. We only had two taps in this year instead of three but the weather was really good for sap production. I didn't keep up my spreadsheet of how many gallons of sap I harvested but based on the end product of about 6.5 quarts, it must have been about 65 gallons of sap. We tried several different methods of cooking sap this year. The weekend Jonathan was home we hooked up a copper tube to the place where the pressure bobber valve usually sits on an old pressure cooker and ran it into a tub of water. The problem was you couldn't monitor or add sap without removing the lid. So we did a lot of it in crock pots again.  I really would like to build an outdoor oven for next year. Lois and I have agreed on a spot to do it on our property but it will be a lot of work.

The treasurer for our church who has been doing an excellent job for about 15 years recently stated her intention to pass the work on to someone else. I have decided to volunteer for the job although I was hoping I'd be retired when this opening came along. I will enjoy some of the work but it does add up to about an hour or two a week.  I have chaired the finance committee for several years so I'm more familiar with the work than anyone else. It feels good to be useful for our church.