We are hiking the woods collecting maple sap … and we’ve got our maple helpers!
Collecting Sap
Cool Sunset
Half Tapped
We got the trees at the top of the driveway (12), the ones at the bottom (2), and the ones along the river (9) tapped today. 23 trees tapped. Tomorrow, we’ll get the back woods (17 trees), the black walnuts at the farm (three or four), plus the new trees at the farmhouse (no idea — at least one huge black walnut and one huge sugar maple). That’s around 23 more. Which means we are halfway done tapping!
Although there is one up the hill at the bottom of the driveway and two more up a hill along the river that we don’t generally tap (fetching sap is dangerous, especially as the ground thaws and it is muddy!). There are also the two maples by the house that never produce sap, the enormous one by the river that I was very disappointed to learn also does not produce sap, and the big sugar maple in the front yard that we are letting recover. Seven untapped trees.
Stuffler Sandwiches
I am trying a new approach to making stuffler sandwiches – pre-forming a circle so there’s more stuffing and less dough. Still getting a lot of dough, though, where they overlap. I think I will try sealing and trimming the edges next time. But there was a lot more stuff even with the folded edges.
Century Home Insurance – FAIR Plan
We took possession of the old farmhouse (finally!) and encountered a whole other problem — houses can be un-insurable. Luckily, the government seems to have thought of that. In Ohio, there are insurance providers who offer FAIR Plans (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements) — basically the insurance world’s “fine, we’ll cover part of it” option for homes that most underwriters won’t touch. FAIR Plans aren’t exactly a regular private insurance product, but they’re not just the government writing you a policy either. They’re state-created backup options designed to make sure hard-to-insure homes can still get coverage.
We’ve got knob and tube wiring, a roof that may be older than me, and too much what the real estate listing would call “personality”. The FAIR Plan provides limited coverage while stuff gets fixed
FAIR Plans are not magic. They’re often:
- more limited than a standard homeowners policy
- more expensive
- focused on basic risks
- missing some protections unless you add separate coverage
The insurance plan we are looking at won’t cover the roof – it needs to be replaced. We know that, the former owner knows that, anyone who drives by the house knows that. And collateral damage from the k&t isn’t covered. But! If the next storm blows a tree into the front wall? We’re covered. We’ve got liability coverage in case one of our friends gets hurt while checking out the new place.
Basically they’re better than nothing. And, once you get all the stuff fixed that a traditional underwriter wants to be in wonderful shape, you buy different insurance.
Snuggle
Daily Kitten Parade
The morning trek to open the coops and water the birds – Ash almost always comes with me, but sometimes Dumplin joins the parade.
Hawks and Eagles
I’m not sure if it is because the winter has been particularly cold or the local lake is drained and the ecosystem is disrupted … but we’ve never had a problem with hawks and eagles until this year. For most of the year, the buzzards keep them away. But this month! We lost a duck to a hawk — I came around the corner and saw the thing eating a duck. A week or so later, two ducks were missing and big feathery spots were in the duck yard. We put a small radio tuned to a talk station out in the duck yard — which seems to have helped there, but we lost two chickens today. I think a rooster tried to rescue the hen and was taken out. So Anya spent the day making scarecrows for both the duck and chicken yard. I mounted old CDs around the fence.
Even more ice
Sick Kitten!
Our younger cat growled at me when I picked him up this morning. When I put him down — he’s a bit of a growler — he had a bit of a limp. We kept him indoors and, as the day went on, his left hind leg got swollen. Scott took him into a local vet, and he had an infected bite! He’s got pain killers for a few days, and he got dosed up with antibiotics. I moved the cat bed into our family room so we could keep an eye on him as he sleeps and recovers.