Winter Hits the North Country

One blog every 6 months.....hmmmm...

Anyway, summer is definately over. We enjoyed a gorgeous autumn and are now enjoying a nice snowy winter. Here are some highlights from the past few months:

• Lolo lost her first 2 teeth




• We went apple picking




• Lolo had lots of fun in all the crunchy leaves




• Bruce's Mom, Kathy, came out for a visit and we picked out a pumpkin at the cider mill




• Tamara went to a retreat on a moutain in New Hampshire and had fun with the so-so foliage.

Nudge the 130lb Saint Bernard pup unfortunately had to find a new home after being with us for 2 1/2 months. He suddenly turned aggressive toward other dogs and, with all the dogs and kids in our neighborhood and his size, we couldn't take any risks. He now has a good home with a big single guy who is a vet tech at the clinic here on post. It's a bummer, though, because we were looking forward to hitching him to a sled this winter.

Summer in the North Country

Lots of changes here since Easter. For one thing we now have a lawn and flowers. For another, we have a new dog. Bruce is still working long hours but since we live on post we get to see a lot more of him between tasks. Also, he doesn't have nearly as many TDYs as he did in Germany. In fact, he had time to run in the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati this past spring. We've also been busy this summer with trips to the beaches at Lake Ontario and playing in the waves, a daytrip to Cranberry Lake in the Adirondacks, a day at the Renaissance Festival in Sterling, VBS, and playing dinosaurs with her neighborhood friends. This summer I took on the volunteer position of Storytime Coordinator at the Post Library so I have the awesome pleasure of creating storytimes twice a week for the kids and helping out with the Summer Reading Program. Now the weather has turned cooler and we are looking forward to the fall colors. Our new pound puppy is excited about the cooler weather as well. His name is Nudge (Lolo changed his name from Sarge...just wouldn't do to run around yelling Sarge on this post) and he's about a year old and, most likely, purebred. Well, enough chatter....on with the pictures!

Easter in the North Country

March gave way to April quite beautifully. Laurel hit the sidewalks (quite hard a few times) with her bicycyle. Just a little over a week ago we rejoiced as we discovered a sidewalk connecting the driveway to our side entrance. It had been buried under snow and ice and we honestly had no idea it was there until recently. Soiled was trucked into our neighborhood to fill in our yards in preparation for grass. And then it started to snow. That was last Wednesday.

Today is Easter Sunday and it is still snowing. Now some of that snow has melted a bit due to occasional quick appearances by the sun but still, it did not feel like Easter Sunday as we slogged thru sometimes heavy snow to church this morning. It did, though, make yesterday's Egg Hunt quite interesting. It's actually a bit difficult to conceal bright orange, yellow, green and blue eggs on white snow without completely burying them. Bruce help members of our church hide 2,000 of them in the park in nearby Carthage. After filling her basket Laurel went sledding. Certainly, this has, for us at least, been a memorable Easter.

A peek into local tradition

A couple of weeks ago Laurel and I participated in a North Country late winter celebration....the annual Maple Syrup Harvest. Along with new friends Jesse, Brenda and Olivia King, we sampled maple cotton candy, maple sugar cakes, and fresh syrup. We also were able to witness the process of transformation from tree sap to sweet amber syrup. The day was cold and snowy but we warmed our hands on the way back to Fort Drum with a warm jug of sweet amber perfection that had been in the tree just the day before....How awesome is that!

So...what did we learn?

• It takes roughly 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup!
• The shed in which the sap is boiled down is called a sugar shack or sugarhouse.
• A group of sugar maples is called a sugarbush.
• A healthy sugar maple tree can grow to the grand old age of 200 years and more!
• Once the trees start to leaf out the sap can no longer be collected for syrup.
• Late winter is a great time for the sap to run because of alternating warm and cold spells.
• Pancake syrup is NOT maple syrup. It's primarily corn syrup.

A sugarmaker checks the consistency of the boiled sap. The more it boils, the thicker and sweeter the sap becomes. Once the sap is 2/3 sugar it turns into syrup. After that it is run thru a paper or cloth filter then siphoned into jugs or bottles.

Laurel and Olivia particularly enjoyed the maple cotton candy.

Are we there yet???

Have received many emails inquiring as to whether we are settled into the new house.......We're getting there. Have workmen in here today repairing some of the "new house kinks and whoopses" that we've experienced over the last three weeks. Seriously, it is not normal for water to run out of the kitchen light fixture every time we take a shower. When I initially called on that one the sweet girl on the other end replied "Well it is raining outside and the snow is starting to melt" ?????? Call me kooky, but I prefer to keep the rain ambience and waterfalls outside in their natural environment.

Here are a few pictures from the past 3 weeks. It has taken a while for me to post these since it has taken over a month for our Verizon account to switch over and work properly in the new house. Still working on the answering service.

Don't even ask to look at the garage. If I gently nudge the boxes I can just fit the Jeep and still close the garage door. The people at Salvation Army practically greet us by name.

Must get back to scavanging for the key to our bookcase. The movers in Germany had a unique sense of humor. Found one key in a shoe and all of the boxes were labeled either kitchen or books or toys regardless of contents. I am certain we will find that key....one day!

Oh Boy...More Snow!

Sure it looks like a lot of snow if you've just returned from 70 degree temps in Georgia, but, compared to our neighbors 40 miles or so to the south, we really only have a paltry amount on the ground right now. Not even 6 feet.

















We haven't yet acquired a snow blower. I'm rather fond of my shovel, actually. It's interesting to watch other people push those noisy monstrosities around, though. The plume of snow thrown off by those things can be quite amazing. Still, when you watch someone shovel, you often see them stop, stretch and you may even catch a self-satisfied glimpse of accomplishment in their eyes as they survey their work. When you watch someone snowplow, it's like watching a drone...no smiles, no stretches or pauses to catch one's breath. Instead, there's just that "get it done quick" grimace. No way. Give me a shovel any day!

Georgia: Three Sets of Grandparents in 10 Days

Laurel and I ventured down to Georgia for ten days to visit with family since some members have had some health issues lately. Everyone is doing somewhat better now and we had a lovely visit.

Many pictures were taken with a variety of cameras (Can you believe that??) but here a few from the past ten days.

1. Laurel with her Gramma Kathy (Bruce's Mom)

2. Gramma Kathy's birthday cake (No, I didn't make it--Publix does wonderful cakes)

3. Grandpa Wolfe, myself and Laurel

4. Laurel with her Papa (my Dad)

Highlights from our journey included:

• a visit to the Ocmulgee Indian Mounds with Grandma and Grandpa Wolfe


• Gramma Kathy's birthday and a trip to Barnes and Noble


• climbing trees and running around Papa's big backyard


• playing with Nana's bear colony in the back bedroom


• learning to make butter rolls (and old family recipe) with Aunt Sue


• receiving freshly knitted sweaters from Gramma Kathy and Aunt Margie


• visiting and gorging on Mexican food with longtime friends Saleha and Heather
• spending time with lifelong friends the Jaros family and their horses, cats and dogs


• devouring the best caramel cake on the planet

So many wonderful memories! Alas, I must now finish this up and head out to shovel more snow and snap a few more photos.

Dad commented that the house was rather quiet this morning without Laurel.

Loving this Snow Day!

Bruce met us at the airport in Syracuse last night upon our returnfrom 10 days (and 70 degree weather) in Georgia. The hotel had our rental dug out for us so it didn't take long for us to get on the road. Highway 81 was snowy and lonesome for the first 30 miles then it was clear to Watertown. Watertown has more snow accumulation than Syracuse, though.

This morning Syracuse's Airport is closed, we have an additional 2 feet or so of snow on the ground and we are under a Nor'easter Blizzard Warning until tomorrow morning. The snow has gotten heavier since I took these pictures around 9am but at least you'll get an idea of how things look on our street.

Oh, and yes, we still like it up here!

North Country Living

Well we've said Tchuss! to Germany, and we are now in New York and settling into our temporary rental home until our house is finished at Fort Drum. We like the temp house. It's in a nice neighborhood and Laurel and I can walk the two blocks to her preschool on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Bruce dove right into the chaos of his new job and seems, most of the time, to be enjoying it better than what he was doing in Germany (apart from flying, that is).

When we first arrived in mid-December, we thought all the hype about living in Blizzard Country was a bunch of hokey. The grass was green and the temps were in the 50s. Oh, and it was windy. Very very windy. I mean we were experiencing flashbacks to Cheyenne! Note Laurel's skirt in the picture below.

Now of course, we've learned two simple yet important words related to life in the North Country: lake effect. We are dipping to about 10 below at night and reaching the teens during the day and there is quite a bit of lovely fluffy dry snow on the ground. During lake effect storms this snow is pretty much dumped upon our area and is quite lovely to enjoy from the warmth of one's home. Unfortunately, thus far the snow does not contain the moisture required to build a good snowman or snowball but we've enjoyed ourselves anyway.

Better close for now and get some dinner on the table. Trying out a new beef stew recipe from America's Test Kitchen. Now that we are hooked up with DSL again I should be able to put in updates much more regularly.

I'll leave you with a picture of one of our neighbors. He has lots of relatives in the area.