Let us go to the sugar camp!

Let us go to the sugar camp, 

while the snow lies on the ground. 

Live in a birch bark wigwam, 

cut a notch in the maple tree, 

Set a pail on the ground below. 

Soon the sap will be flowww-ing. 

Make a fire in the sugar lodge, 

so that we may boil the sap. 

Bring out the wooden ladle....yummmm. 

In the snow see the rabbit tracks, 

hear the call of the chickadee-dee-dee. 

Do not stop to follow them...

Tis the season of the sugar camp, 

tis the season of the sugar camp! 

The sap is running at Wrens Nest & we have a day of maple magic in store! 

A beautiful sunny morning taking advantage of the new light....

I would like a rainbow casting tower on my house! 

Thank you to MAISIE for your wonderful PAINTED TURTLE presentation!! Through costume and with props and the help of friends, Maisie taught us about the life cycle of the painted turtle. Our favorite was learning about how the painted turtle loves to bask in the sun to get warm, because we do to! 

-I have video of Maisie's presentation, but am having trouble uploading it here! Hopefully to follow soon!-

Thank you mystery March for delivering more of this snow that we love so much!! We can dig tunnels, build snow men, climb and jump, and sled endlessly, so bring it on. 

After a very busy morning of moving our bodies, it was off to our maple tree! First we had to measure. A sugar maple should be at least 48 inches around to be tapped, so we measured...will this one work?

nope! 

What about this one?

Yes! 

Thank you, thank you to Amaya's dad Ben who lent us his hand drill!! It was a bit tricky and the old power drill did help out a bit but we all took turns turning the hand drill watching the pulp stream out.  Maple magic indeed! 

We hammered in our tap and then everyone got to have a taste of the sweet sap straight from the spout! 

When we got back, we got busy making maple pictures. We used books to help our imaginations and drew sap buckets, maples and sugar on snow!

We cozied up for some stories and did some yoga to wake our bodies up from their rest. So many good books about sugaring in Vermont and Canada and the different ways that people enjoy maple syrup. 

We've tapped our tree its only natural that pancakes will follow!! See you next week for pancake day! 

Breezy Mountain and the GBH!

The Great Blue Heron and Breezy Mountain! 

Mystery March is here at Wren's Nest and we are ready for all the twists and turns that it will bring! Sun one day, feet of snow the next, bring it on! 

We commeced our Animal presentations with my Red Eft, and now Katie's Great Blue Heron. She used that ribbon to teach us about the wingspan and height of the GBH, it is one very big bird! 

We learned about their nests, eggs, and favorite foods--look out painted turtle & red eft! 

Thank you for teaching us about that great blue bird! 

Then out we went for more snow play in the recent freshies. We stopped for some sledding and are really getting our form down as you can see! Force, motion, and aerodynamics all come into play as we try again and again to get air off our jump!

And a snow caterpillar! 

Then is was up to breezy mountain where we came across another old weaving from the warmer months. 

We took a new and steeper, but shorter, way up breezy mountain. And once we got there we made the best natural slide. Who needs a metal slide!?

Zooming down, again and again and again! 

Then we made our way up to the yelling rock to hear the story of Gluskabe. It's the start of maple sugaring season in Vermont and there is a lot of local history that goes along with this magical time. We learned about the Abenaki ways of maple sugaring, heard the story of Gluskabe who turned syrup into sap, and learned the Algonquin word for  maple syrup. If you have heard your child asking for "sinsibuckwud" on their pancakes, now you know why ;)

After our story on breezy mountain, it was time to head back for some lunch and mindfulness. We read so many good books about maple sugaring and drew our own sugaring pictures. 

After some rest and mindfulness all we wanted to do was a bit more sledding before goodbye, and thats what we did! 

Yeehaw! 

Lets see what mystery March brings next week!