April
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| Happy April Fool's Mike! Mike loves to fix things with duct tape, so there's surran wrap and duck design duct tape wrapped around his car. |
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| My favorite part of this joke though, I put confetti in his vents and turned his air on full blast. So when he turned the car on confetti came shooting out everywhere. I wish I had put a camera in the car to film his reaction. =) |
It finally got warm enough to make some maple syrup. In order for the sap to run out of the trees, the day has to start below freezing and warm up into the 40's. This was a shorter syrup season since it didn't warm up until later and the window for the right temps was really narrow this year.
The process starts by drilling holes and placing taps into the trees.
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| Then placing a tap |
Once you've collected enough sap (we collected around 16 gallons) you can then start the evaporation process. It takes about 40 gallons of sap boiled down to map a gallon of syrup! We'll do this every year for fun, but it's definitely worth paying the money for someone else to do it.
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| Here's all the syrup we ended up with. It didn't taste quite the same as the syrup we usually buy, but Mike's Dad liked it and we took it to our friends at The Maple Moose and they said it looked and tasted like good syrup! |
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We saw our moose a few more times. We were able to get a little closer and get some good pictures.
This was the first time I drove by him. He was right next to the road. When I got back from dropping Annabelle off at school he had moved a little ways away from the road. |
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| He kept looking over at me while I was taking pictures. |
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| But he didn't seem to mind too much. Just went back to eating. |
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| When the snow started to melt, we had some great creeks! |
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| This one ran out into the big Aroostook River. |
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| When everything starts melting, the icebergs appear. |
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| So many people were out taking pictures that day. It was like the day everyone had been waiting for all Winter! It felt like it meant Winter was officially over! =) |
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We drove buy this house we had been looking to buy. This is an awesome house, but just such a hard house to resell. It's right across from the river, is over 5,000 sq. ft. and comes with 9 acres! I'll leave the listing so you can see... this house is pretty amazing and the price is ridiculous.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/910-Grimes-Rd_Caribou_ME_04736_M37772-89121 |
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| We had to do a little shopping at the mall, and Vivian had been in this little car and picked a piece of gum off and started chewing when I wasn't looking! |
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| These two are too cute! |
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| What you do for fun when you've been cooped up inside too long. =) |
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| So pretty! But not fun driving conditions. |
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| For a Family Home Evening one right, we had some fun with Peeps. Here, the girls were trying to see who could eat the the fastest with their hands behind their backs. We realized after, this might be a choking hazard! |
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| Then to see how many the could stack on top of each other. |
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| Then we had the Peep jousting contest in the microwave. I LOVE peeps! |
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| Easter Sunday! It was a mess out there! |
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| The moose was across the street one day. |
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| No words. |
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| We had a rafter (look it up) of turkeys out on our road. |
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| We went to a big indoor yard sale type thing called "Trash and Treasure" where Mike bought one of these old photo viewers. I think it's the first time the girls had ever seen one. |
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| Moose tracks in our yard! |
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| This is what happens when it's warm enough to play outside (ab0ut 60 degrees) but not all the snow has melted yet. #lifeinnorthernmaine |
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| Yes, those are swimsuits with snow outside! |
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| We had a jar of coins which Eedie made Grandpa wrap up in a sock and a hand towel. It totally looked like a cocoon. |
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| Vivian dressed her doggie up in her PJs. |
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| The snow was finally starting to melt by the end of April. |
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| My friend Marin and I, did a small business show. Not too many people showed up since it was Spring break weekend. But we'll be doing another show together this summer! |
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| Back at Grand Falls after the snow melted |
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| Some intense water. |
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| In Maine, mailboxes often get destroyed by snow plow trucks. So here's this families solution. =) |
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| The Amish with some interesting contraption. We need to talk to them and figure out what this is. |
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| Eedie, so proud of her leg drawing. |
For Spring break, we headed down to Portland for a little fun. We stopped at the Maine wildlife zoo.
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| An alpino raccoon. |
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| Porcupine! |
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| The most moose I've seen since we've been here. |
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| Bear! We have seen one other bear just across the street from us! Yikes! |
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| This bald eagle had destroyed his meal. |
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| Downtown Portland by the pier. |
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| Gelato |
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| My favorite part, doughnut and alien bongs. |
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| Closer view of the aliens |
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| Down by the water, the rocks looked like petrified wood. |
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| Cape Elizabeth - we're going to work on getting all the lighthouses done before we leave. |
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| Found this crazy stone seat that looked like a dental chair. |
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| Portland Head Lighthouse |
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| Sleeping at the hotel. |
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| We went to a pretty fun trampoline jumping house. |
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| We found this guy working at the LL Bean Store in Freeport. |
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| Messing around with turkey calls at the Bean |
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| They sold these pretty awesome lobster suckers there. Don't worry... they were cherry flavored. |
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| I think I want a house like this. =) |
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| The big LL Bean boot is usually here, but they are getting a new one. Apparently it had some mold growing on it. |
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| The girls enjoying their suckers. |
My absolute favorite part of our whole property, is this creek that runs through the back. Here are some pictures..
So we're pretty sure Winter is done now! Looking forward to a Maine summer!
