Monthly Archives: March 2025

The Journey of Patience: Lessons from Maple Syrup

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Whew! Where has the time gone? This weekend was fun… but it flew by! What did I do Saturday? Oh yeah… groceries, laundry. No time for clean up. Normal, everyday weekend things that simply eat up your time. Yet Sunday was funday! Which leads to this week’s muse. And it’s all about being patient. And it’s about that because I. am. not.

How are you in the patient department? Do you have endless amounts of time to spend waiting….

Spring gave us just a glimpse of warmer weather before winter reared it’s ugly head again… and I got excited. By excited, I mean I dreamt up 101 projects to do on #itsnotta farm. Most of which will not get done. Included in this list, was order baby chicks, and research a maple syrup evaporator. Those did get done. I started my seeds, too. I keep forgetting to check on them though… they likely need watering and bigger pots. Did you hear I ordered more baby chicks?! Right, back to maple syrup. If you recall, we made our first attempt at maple syrup tree tapping last year. We collected a whole whack of sap… and had one miserable boiling day… resulting in about 2 cups of syrup. (You can read about that sticky situation here). The rest of the sap has been sitting in my deep freeze for a year!

The “fancy” redneck evaporator!

So this year… I’m on it. We bought a “fancy” redneck (do those words even go together?!) barrel evaporator and Sunday planned to use the sap up from last year! It was a nice day as spring days go, so we invited the kids and chopped wood. Much to the hubby’s delight, the fire was roaring in said barrel and we were on our way! Syrup, here we come! Alas, we forgot how long sap takes to boil down. It takes a long time. Forever. Even with fancy redneck equipment.

We broke for dinner. Pots and pans were boiling and steaming and we were enjoying the grand baby, the somewhat sunny day, a glass of wine and the camaraderie of family. I waited for the sap to get to the desired “syrup” temperature. It smelled right. It looked the right colour. It tasted right. Still, it wasn’t thickening. Sigh. More waiting. Last year I missed the mark and we sugared out. This year, I don’t know. We bottled the liquid gold … but it’s runny.

So we come full circle, back to my thoughts about patience. My family always complains that I never preheat the oven. Ain’t nobody got time for that. My noodles are al dente. Always. “Just stick that there… it’ll be fine” I say. Have I no patience? It’s a fruit of the spirit, after all… it’s something I should strive for! Just slow down. Wait. It’s easier said than done. I want results!

Photo by Canan YAu015eAR on Pexels.com

(This is kinda how I felt waiting for things to boil down…)

Psalm 37:7 states, “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.” Am I rushed when it comes to waiting on God, too? I see the plans and get sucked in by all the Instagram worthy homesteaders who have all the projects on the go and I fret. I do! Patience truly is a virtue that I must work on. I suppose winter weather and maple syrup is one way of teaching me. I hope I get the point.

And you, my friend? How’s fruit bearing on your tree? Do you loose it occasionally? Are your noodles al dente the same as your attitude with co-workers? A little hard because you didn’t wait for things to soften out? Are your relationships sweet but simply not thick enough because you haven’t allowed time? I don’t know… some days I think I have it all together. Other days my pancakes just get sticky, but lack substance. It’s all a journey, my friend. We shall try out the fire once again soon. This time, I will try and be patient! Then I’ll write about it and we’ll learn together!

How Nature’s Harmony Reflects Life’s Lessons

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Welcome back to another episode of me and my little piece of the internet. The hubby asked me what I was writing about this week. I told him “symbiotic relationships”. He gave me the blank “okay fine” look and slowly walked away. I hope you don’t feel the same way. Let’s see where this thought goes, shall we? I hope by the end of this post you don’t “okay fine” stare and keep scrolling. I hope it makes you smile. So, yes, I was thinking about how cool it was that things all mesh together. Classic science calls this “symbiosis”. It’s where two different species have a relationship that somehow connects. For example, anyone who’s watched Finding Nemo knows about the clown fish and sea anemone. The fish gets protection and the anemone gets its daily cleaning from the fish. This is a fairly positive relationship. Parasites are an example of a negative symbiotic relationship… only one half benefits. The other half usually gets eaten. You can dig deeper if you want, but my original muse kind of expanded from there.

Therefore, we need to back track a little. This winter has been quite snowy. Snow has piled high and there was storm after storm. Most of us are sick of it. Finally, this weekend, it rained and rained. In fact, there was a thunderstorm with lightning and thunder. The rain has washed quite a bit of the snow away and we are finally seeing some grass on the ground (and mud… but that’s a topic for a different day). This is where my brain went: How cool is it that God set science in motion to bring rain to wash away snow. And this for that, and that for this, and … well you get it. Life and seasons all work in such as way to progress.

Time keeps ticking. We age. Life moves on whether we like it or not. The sun rises and sets and we mere humans can do very little to stop it. I think about all we do to mess it up. We cut down the rain forests, we pollute, and politics erase borders and plot, kill and pillage. History is full of human attempts to mess up God’s design for the perfect world and all that ebbs and flows naturally. At least that’s how I see it most of the time.

Perhaps that’s a pessimistic view of the world, and we should change the direction of this rant. Let’s go back to a mutualistic symbiotic ideal earth… where we all get along and benefit from others. You have to admit, it’s pretty cool that two species just hang together and help. Did you know that there is a bacteria designed simply to help the cow digest its food? Just living its best life in the warm, juicy rumen stomach breaking down all those cow yummies. Only a creative, imaginative God could set (even the fallen) world in order. And then keeps it ticking.

“Takes a licking and keeps on ticking”

We tapped our trees tonight for maple syrup. There’s grass. The chickens are so happy to be out and about again. The bunnies will soon be back in their run soaking up the sun. The pool and pond will eventually melt completely and be green again so the hubby can start his quest for pool boy of the year all over! Spring has finally started – as we knew it would eventually – and I am just feelin’ it! Are you?

Our pastor spoke on worry this past week. Admittedly, I’m not a huge worrier. I know, lucky me. It’s because of muses like this. I see how the world around me simply keeps on moving on, and me worrying cannot add a day to it. I get the whole “birds don’t sow or reap but they eat just fine” verse. I see it. And I hope after reading today’s post, you see it a bit more clearly, too. Happy Spring, my beloveds: Enjoy it!! God designed it to be a new start to refresh us all!

Weather Reflections: Lessons from Jesus Calming the Storm

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Greetings! The next few days are supposed to be wet, wet, wet! So, as a good Canadian, I’m going to start this week’s post with small talk about the weather. If the weather does what it says it’s going to, our piles of snow are going to melt away to puddles – with flooding, mud and general chaos of spring. I’m okay with that, as long as the temperature stays above freezing and it doesn’t turn into a slick ice rink on the roads! I’m done with that type of country driving (see here for my great winter driving story! HeHe!)

Speaking of the weather… it was the topic of my Sunday school lesson this past week. (They don’t call it “Sunday school” anymore; who wants school on Sundays? Showing my age here -but whatever… you get it – lessons for a bunch of little kids from the Bible). I’m loving getting back to hanging out with 3 year olds. They are brutally honest. They won’t let you rest for a moment… nor do they let you get away with faking it. They’ve got to trust you or it won’t fly. Which makes it difficult if they are a little shy and don’t want to hang out with a newbie who they only see once a month on the kids ministry schedule instead of mom or dad. We had eight blessings this week. One handsome young man melted my heart when he wanted only me to play with him. Alas, I digress… back to the weather.

Our lesson was Jesus calming the storm. In case you are not familiar… the gospels tell the story of Jesus and the disciples out in a boat when a storm arises. Jesus is asleep, and the men become afraid and wake him up. Bottom line: Jesus tells them He’s got it all under control and proceeds to “rebuke the winds and the rain” and calms the storm back to a gentle breeze. Yada Yada… disciples are again amazed at God’s power, Promote to kids that Jesus has the power like Superman and all is good in the world. The kids and I have a snowball fight with cotton balls, we laugh and run around with blue streamers being wind and crazy rain and I roll play Jesus and make them all STOP and be calm again.

And so, I muse. This story has been on my radar three different times this week in three different contexts. And I always say…”if you don’t listen to God’s still, small voice, then He’ll hit you with a 2×4 until you get it”. Jesus calming the storm. What am I to learn? Do I need reassurance that God, is in fact, always in control? Especially right now when Canada and the USA are battling out tariff wars and the news is all a buzz about what’s going to happen next? Am I to share it here, in my little corner of the internet, to encourage you, my beloved readers, that yes, God has the power to rebuke even the wind and rain and make the earth stop shaking? Or am I to reflect on how I can teach the next generation about the simplicity of the Gospel miracles… through play and fun?

Perhaps it’s all of the above. Weather is one of the simplest, and yet complex observances we can make on a daily basis. We have apps that keep us up to date hour by hour. Driving conditions and school bus cancellations… flight delays, weather watches and our outfit of the day. We are so influenced by something so seemingly simple as what ever is happening in the sky. Perhaps this is why it’s hitting me threefold this week. Something’s about to come down the tubes that will prompt me to remember that Yup, God’s got this one too… and a snowball fight with 3 year olds will be triggered in my memory.

Photo credit Etsy

And so, I pass it on to you, this week, my beloveds… so that we can be encouraged together that no matter what, the Creator of the universe and all the crazy weather that comes with it, still has you and I in the palm of His hand. We can peacefully sleep in the bottom of the ship (on a pillow says only one of the gospels… which is a weird observation in itself, but I digress again) as the storm rages on around us, knowing that Jesus “got power”! Take it to heart… and bring your umbrella just in case.