Still Learning

Whew! It has been a busy week! Everything just seems to take a little longer these days. I think we are still in survival mode… even though it’s been almost a year since we moved out here to the country. I can’t believe how time has flown! So many changes, so much to learn. Learning. It’s what I’ve been musing about this week. If any of you have been with me since the beginning, you’ll know that mittonmusings.com was born out of a desire to continue learning… to understand how posts, blogging and all that jazz works. I can say that I have, indeed, learned a lot over the years. We created landing pages, contests, social media platforms, and many of you followed along during 30 Days of Blessings. That was fun!

I can honestly say that moving to a new town also had some learning curves. For one, everything closes so early here. We have adjusted our schedule to get shopping done, and meet the school bus at the very early morning pick up. Let me tell you, for us nighthawks, that first week of classes was tough! Yet, here we are at the end of the school year, and I can barely sleep in on weekends now! (I refuse to be a morning person, I refuse to be a morning person, I refuse to be a morning person…) Learning to have the hubby working from home and juggling our time together with less kids hanging around has been an adjustment. Simply knowing where to store stuff in a new house is sometimes a challenge! So much change. Not to say that change is bad. In fact, I think learning to change, adapt and grow is vital to life. You need it. Even if it’s hard — it’s important.

Often, that change is a struggle. Like the old song says, you can’t go over it and you can’t go under it. Sometimes, you just have to go through it to learn. You trudge along, make mistakes, get messy and manage with some trial and error. When we had our kids, they didn’t come with instruction manuals. We just had to learn. Then the next kid came along and all the rules changed. We had to learn what worked for that child. We were crazy enough to do it four times, each with a new set of adventures to learn! Even when the chicks arrived… I read, researched and tried to study… but I am still googling things and watching videos! Did you know that chickens must “learn” to roost at night? I just got back from putting them to “bed” and they were all huddled in the corner. I tried lifting them up one by one on the roosting bars… but a chicken’s brain is little. It’s going to take some practice. We shall keep learning together.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com (not my ladies, but roosting!)

Humans have been learning together for years. Some of us are better at it than others. Our youngest had to do a year end project on a person or people who have “changed the world” as we know it because they did something. I wonder if any major changes have happened recently that future generations will do school projects on. Covid-19 world-wide pandemic anyone? I’m not much of a history buff, but time has a way of creating learning curves for the human race… whether we like it or not. It’s all part of God’s plan!

I was struck recently about the disciples and the early church believers and their misunderstandings. We know “it was all part of God’s plan” — but the early church had to go through it. How many times do we hear Jesus saying they just didn’t get it? Not that His parables were so cut and dry, mind you. Can we blame a few fisherman who see and hear things they could never have imagined and expect them to fully understand what was happening? Who would believe that such a great leader and teacher would allow His own arrest and crucifixion? And for it to all be part of the plan?! I am convinced it was a difficult learning curve for the followers to comprehend. Good grief! It’s hard for us to understand and we have it all laid out for us in black and white! Still, we continue to learn.

What about you, my friend? Are you in a season of real learning? Perhaps, you are the one teaching and getting frustrated with your students. Be patient. It takes time for some of us to “get it”. Often we have to struggle through it. Some of us have to be taught it over and over. Others just seem to have the gift of easy understanding. Nevertheless, we all must keep learning. Learning and growing and changing and adapting. It’s the way the Potter needs to shape the clay. It’s the way the vine and the branches get pruned and new growth starts. Fruit blooms from the new growth when our attentions are snipped and focused. Sometimes, we have to be taught to roost and rest at night. We need to be shown how to relax and not huddle in a corner. Yes, my beloveds, life is learning. Let’s share the journey together, shall we? We’ll meet back here again soon!

Photo by Akosua Gabriel on Pexels.com

Sticky Situation

We did it! We did it! We did it! Hooray! Now that I have Dora the Explorer’s theme song running through my head and yours, let me give you a little update on what exactly we did. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that we have tapped a few of our maple trees to make maple syrup this spring. Well, our minimal research and best laid, however naive, plans, made me host a “boiling party” this past Sunday. I invited a few friends over to sit by the fire with us and see how the day went. I thought it would be relaxed and fun. Roast a few hot dogs, maybe, get at least half of our sap boiled up, and perhaps bottle a bit.

Photo by Sindre Fs on Pexels.com

As life would have it, our plans don’t always work out as we expect. First, our sap is frozen. Stored in the freezer to keep it fresh. That’s fine… but after an overnight thaw, we still had big chunks of ice. No worries, right? Gonna boil it down anyway. Big chunks of ice don’t fit in my shallow pans. Then it rained the night before. Which means our wood and fire spot was fairly damp. We did save some fuel indoors (because we did check the weather!) but the hubby still had a hard time getting the fire going. And he usually has no trouble starting fires. Wink Wink.

Now remember, we’ve never done this before. We have no idea what we are doing. Yet, we march forward… fire going. Pans boiling. Sap levels start going down. Things appear to be working. Let’s put another pan out and try the bar-b-que. Yeah, that will work. We won’t mention the propane bill. I have fed my guests hamburgers. They are gracious, long time friends whom we love. They don jackets and “check on the fire” and encourage the hubby. We drink coffee and complain about the cold.

Hours have past. So, let’s get to the crux of this story. We have “thickened” sap. Our research tells us we can “finish off” our syrup inside on the stove. Everyone tells you not to do the maple syrup inside because it makes everything sticky, but this “finishing off” part needs to be monitored. The temperature checks and precision is needed to get the sap to the syrup stage… so it is okay to do this part inside on the stove. Okay. Stock pot locked and loaded. Two inches of sap from an entire 12 litre bucket. Candy thermometer marked at 219 degrees F. And then we got distracted. Chit chatting outside. Thinking the other was watching the pot boil. Disaster. Our syrup was burnt sugar.

Disaster

Okay, okay. Let’s fix it. I break out the candy molds. Maple sugar candy… that’s a thing, right? The family says add water… we boiled again. Yes! Syrup! Bottle it in our cute maple syrup bottles… wait. What are the floatie things? Eww. Is it supposed to look like that? Google. Apparently, one must filter the sugar sand or niter that remains in sap-syrup. Coffee filters don’t work. I spilled some. The syrup is now thick and sticky…. and drips and drops are everywhere! On my elbows, on my counter, on the stove, in the sink, in pots, pans and bottles. Sticky rolled up coffee filters with sandy grit are piled and discarded. Spoons and taste testers are left on sticky counters. Our friends have abandoned us. This is why they tell you don’t do maple syrup inside. It becomes a sticky situation!!

After 6 or so hours and all that… we have two 250ml bottles of thick, clear, sweet maple syrup to enjoy! (And 9 or so more buckets in the freezer to do it all over again with!) Seriously though, we had fun. We learned through trial and error. We laughed, we panicked, we yelled a little, but in the end: We did it!

We did it!

And so we come to the life lesson of boiling day. So often, we get ourselves in sticky situations, don’t we? We plan an Instagram worthy party with good friends. We think it is all going to be fluffy and romantic. We underestimate the time needed to invest. We think we will get so much more accomplished than we do. We try. We learn through trial and error and mistakes — and Google? We yell a little. Things get burnt. We waste precious resources and get distracted when we should be focused. We end up with big messes that need to get filtered through the One who is in control of it all.

Psalm 40 shows us how to get out of that sticky situation and stand again on solid ground. The stability (with all the sweet benefits) of being in the hands of the one who has laid out “good plans” for us. God no longer wants our burnt offerings, as sugary as they may be to us. He wants honest, raw worship and obedience. He wants us to call out to Him in those times of trouble, so He can lift us out of the mess, and show others the Way. It’s tough work. Sometimes it’s messy and things don’t go as planned. Sometimes we have a lot of cleaning up to do. Often, we get given the chance to do it all over again — and learn from our mistakes, as we work towards “perfection”.

Keep following along. The Mitton crew has buckets full of more chances at perfection sitting in the freezer. And if you receive a cute bottle of syrup from Itsnotta Farm — ignore the floaties –and enjoy the sweetness! Just know it was painstakingly life lessoned and prepared for you with lots of love and time!

Playing Possum

Welcome back, beloveds! I trust you had a good week off. We enjoyed our family day weekend away, despite some glitches – but those are stories for another day. I am home again and working on this post after being outside cleaning up the bunnies. It is a beautiful day… warmer than most spring days and it’s still February! Last year this time, the hubby was complaining about the freezing wind and walking the dog in two feet of snow! We are certainly seeing the effects of global warming here.

Speaking of global warming, a new creature has been making its way north and is being spotted more and more in southern Ontario: The Virginia Possum. Technically “opossum” (possum is the nickname for the Australian marsupial cousins). And if you saw my stories a little while ago, you’ll know that one of then has been frequenting our yard!! At first, there were strange tracks about. I was calling it a fat squirrel… but they didn’t hop like a squirrel, and no, not a bunny either. These tracks had big feet/claws like a raccoon, but not spaced that big. A mystery. Then the dogs (Reese and our furry “granddog”) noticed it in the treeline. Not an escape bunny… but the visiting possum! After being terrorized by two nosy doggies, and a collection of curious onlookers trying to get a picture of it in the dark, I heard it wandered off into our woods. So far, it is yet to be seen again, but I am hoping the nocturnal creature is sneaking snacks from our bird feeders at dusk and dawn.

Mystery Tracks

Why, do you ask, do I want this ugly little guy hanging around when it is very apt to eat my impending chicks? Well, apparently they are the clean up crew and eat all kinds of other junk too! Ticks and nasty bugs for one. Lyme disease producing ticks can be eliminated by one opossum at a rate of 4000 a week! Bring it on! Apparently, they are a very low rabies risk and will kill venomous snakes too! They will eat just about anything, including bones, and apparently are less destructive than raccoons, so our little visitor can hang out in the woods near our house as a welcomed guest. Just stay out of the hen house, okay?

Still, these little creatures haven’t totally adapted to our Canadian winters quite yet. Their little toes and tails are naked, and therefore prone to frostbite. We had a sickly one in the city, living under our shed, and it was a sad looking thing. Ugly as sin. Rodents of unusual size, indeed. (Even though they are marsupials not rodents!) And so I muse….

How good are you at adapting? Are you feeling shunned because you’re not as “cute” as others, even though you have plenty to offer? Do you play dead when approached or threatened? As an introvert trying to blend in to a new environment, I’m feeling quite possum-ish these days. Sharing our faith is intimidating. Building community and walking alongside others takes some confidence. We can’t “play dead” like the opossum when threatened by views that counter our own. Jesus didn’t back down from a fight. He was immune to the venomous culture infiltrating His neighbourhood, and chose to fight back and confront, taking on the disease producing pests of His day. Do we do the same?

Possums look threatening. All teeth and claws and naked, ratty tails. Yet, they stay in the shadows most of the time cleaning up the garbage. They are not destructive either; they don’t chew and prefer already dug dens versus your attic or garage. They try and live at peace with others and just go about their business quietly. A lesson we can also take. How many times have we tried to chew a hole in someone else’s argument, when the simplest way to be welcomed is when space becomes available? Our good looks may not get us anywhere. Peaceful discussion may be the key to building lasting and rewarding friendships.

Life is hard, isn’t it? No one told us it was supposed to be easy. Often we are vulnerable and naked, out standing in the harsh elements getting frostbitten. Yet, with God’s help, we can adapt and play vital roles in even new environments! We can take advantage of what’s been offered to us, and peacefully approach life, doing good and cleaning up the bad. Even when threatened, we can still “play possum” and wait for the opportunity to escape unscathed. Good looks and flashy appearances aren’t always the ticket. Sometimes we just have to hang around in the shadows and be part of the clean up crew.