Celebrating March!

I don't remember when I've been so happy to see the first day of March!  But the big question remains, is it coming in like a LION or LAMB?

I don't think anyone cares, as long as it's not February anymore!  But let's analyze:  It's a beautiful sunny day, so on my LION/LAMB continuum that would fall on the LAMB side.  But it's still -7˚ at 10:30am so that's definitely on the opposite LION side.  Maybe I could make a 4-quadrant chart and plot the possibilities.  It could be a beautiful sunny day (like today) and be 40˚ F (not like today), and that would be a LAMB/LAMB winner!  (Maybe not to most people in the world, but 40˚ sounds like a little bit of heaven right now.)  On the other hand it could be -7˚ F. at 10:30am (today) and be a total blizzard outside like last weekend.  Roarrrrrrr! That's a LION/LION day.  So, here's me being thankful for the sun, enjoying our LAMB/LION day and looking to next weekend when the temps will be higher.  Meanwhile, they say we will be setting a record for the coldest winter since 1874-75 with 70 straight days of temps below zero.  Yay us!

So what can we look forward to in March?

• Leann's birthday is on the 11th when she wants to have an indoor picnic & brat/hot dog roast again this year.  Last year we were really optimistic and were planning an outdoor cook-out! But, no.  
• Older Daughter's birthday is on the 23rd, but I'm not sure she's recovered from turning 30.  I'm sure she'll find some fun California place to visit to celebrate.
• March is high school boys' & girls' basketball tournament time in Wisconsin and Minnesota. We're so proud of our school here and feel so fortunate that we still have our school in town, even though it's one of the smallest schools in Wisconsin.  They are always winning awards for their students' achievements, and they have such a dedicated group of teachers, parents and community members supporting them.  The girls' basketball team is undefeated again this year and will be moving on to the next level.  Last year they lost their first game of the whole year in the championship playoffs.  That's pretty good when they have class sizes of around 10 students!  So, playoff games coming up!
• And, finally, by the end of March we should be able to start collecting sap for maple syrup! (IF it warms up enough for the sap to run, IF we can get to the maple trees through all this snow, any other IFs?  I think that's it.)

Here are some pictures from last year:

Down in the "Sugar Bush" where we drill holes in the trees and hang our adapted milk cartons on to catch the drips of sap.

Drip, drip, drip.  Not a better sound on a warm-ish spring day, with some bird sounds added in, too.  It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, so that's a LOT of drips!

Then we cook off the sap on this wood cookstove from the old Larson house.  The main job for us here is keeping the firebox filled with wood to keep the fire hot and having a good book to read.  Then we bring it into the house to finish it off and process it.

Nothing better!