This past week has been very strange. It has gone from -20C to +6 in the space of a week. Despite the temperature jumps spring is coming. It doesn’t always feel like it, but the birds have been chattering about the arrival of spring for the last week. Lately the woods have been far more verbal. The birds have become much more vocal, telling the world about the promise of warm breezes and warm sunshine. They are right. We had wonderful sunshine today. It was lovely to stand outside and feel the warmth on my face and NOT be cold at the same time.

With all these warmer days and cold nights means a change of routine here. Today the maple syrup taps and buckets came out of the shed. After washing them up I packed up the tree tapping gear and went outside to tap our trees.

We are both complete novices at making maple syrup as this is only our third year doing this. It is interesting to track the differences from year to year. This year tapping has started three weeks earlier than last year.

We also sold out first animals this past weekend. We had two very nice Chantecler cockerels we hatched out last September. Knowing we had too many roosters we knew we had to get rid of them. It is the eternal question if you have any kind of livestock, what do you do with extras, especially the males. These two birds were quite nice and coming from such nice stock,(they were form old bloodlines) we hated to put them in the pot. So, an ad went onto Poultry Swap. I have to admint I was a bit surprised when people contacted us to look at the two boys.

A breeder of bantam Chantelcers came to look at the two boys and took them both home. So we are happy to say that the boys will be used in a breeding program, not going into the pot. The visit was fascinating as this man had been breeding chickens for years and was VERY knowledgeable. He taught us an awful lot. It was amazing to watch him picking up the chickens. It was like watching him pick up a can of pop.

So we only have one more cockerel to find anew home for. If anyone out there is interested in a barred rock rooster with a nice looking rose comb let us know. If not we will have to make other plans for him.