A Maple Mantel

Some good things of the day..

We had a two hour delay from the freezing temperatures following all the rain, so we had a nice relaxing morning.  This also meant that my gym class was canceled (woo hoo!)

The front yard is a wet mess.  You might not think that is a good thing, but it actually means that the drainage system we put in last year is working.  The drains are pulling all the rain and melted snow away from our house and towards the road.  Which means, knock on wood, so far, our basement is dry!  Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!

Today, I thought I would share a simple project, our maple mantel.

Try saying that 3 times fast…

Maple Mantel…Maple Mantel….Maple Mantel.

I made some minor adjustments to my Valentine mantel to be more in keeping with the time of year.

I still was enjoying the quiet and simplicity of this display, but knew Valentines was over.

Since this is our season for making maple syrup, I figured that would be a fun direction to go in.

I simply removed the things that screamed Valentine’s and then added a glittered maple leaf and a great metal and rusty maple stencil that I found on Etsy a while back.

   

 

Sometimes a subtle change is all ‘ya need.

 

Thanks for reading and have a great one!

Take care, Laura

The Most Wonderful Time of Year

Nope, I am not talking about Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong, we love Christmas in our house.

But, for our family, we wait all year for this.

It’s sugaring time!

For those of  you who don’t know what that means, it means, for about 6 weeks each year, we make our own Maple Syrup.

And when I say, “we”, I mean our neighborhood.  We only have a few maple trees on our property,  but we tap about 100 trees in our neighborhood. 

And that means lots of people and fun and socializing for 6 weeks as well.

It was REALLY cold on tapping day, so for the first time we cheated a little and this is Peanut using an electric drill to help things along a little quicker.   But usually, we go old school with a hand drill.

 

When it was time to head out on tap day, Peanut jumped up and down and proclaimed “It’s here, it’s here, it’s finally here!”

Needless today, sugaring is all about family time.

  

And friend time.  It is pretty common that we have 18 to 20 people for dinner on Saturday nights during this time.  Nothing fancy, everyone brings something, paper plates and good old fashion fun.

 

 

So, hopefully you will enjoy our sugaring journey this year because I am planning to share more about it!

 

 

Thanks for reading and have a great day!