Sunday Sap Collecting

Forest puddles are pretty. 

Buds of some kind.

Lincoln and Daddy

The Sap collecting crew

Cheyenne watched Hoyt

While Gilbert painted a tree with his tiny paintbrush...

...with mud as a medium. 

Big strong Elliott

Moving the tank

Marching along. 

Gilbert is clearly startled by something. 

A golden, shimmery shining paper birch tree. It didn't photograph well. 

Cheyenne borrowed my camera for a bit. Love this picture!

Enchanting.

Our sap collecting set up. I got to do the momentary arm workout of dump the buckets, rather than the my-arms-are-being-pulled-out-of-their-sockets workout of carrying full five gallon buckets around. 

A crooked tree. We were speculating about how it bent like that, but we don't know. 

Lily borrowed my camera for a bit too.

An Elsie toting Cheyenne

Little pools

Not sure what this is. Some kind of twisty tree.

Woodland pools

My Orianna

A tree with many toes.

Wrapping up, getting ready to move to the next spot.

Old Mason Jar on a junk pile. 

Love the Variations of tan.

Ready for the ride back to the farm. Yes, I was nervous about my kids riding on the road like this. But they all survived. I made the littles ride in the Suburban. Lincoln, had been feeling sick on Saturday, and was feeling sick again, so he rode in the Suburban too. Poor boy!

Heading out.

One of the Amish farms had a new baby!

Crazy cousins. 

Holding on tight.

The farm in March

Marilla Jane

Lily borrowed my camera again.

Heads of hair

Love this picture!

Rilla was the dog petter apparently. 

Lily takes a lot of pictures of Rilla. But then, she is cute.

Waiting for more sap

Mid Jump

Hoyt

Cousins

That Elliott boy we love. Even though he makes crazy faces.

One more Rilla picture!

When we got home, the kids decided to play on the deck. I was busy at the moment, and when I looked out ten minutes later, they had set up shop, Complete with decorations. 

I told them not to bring out too much stuff--apparently the entire American Girl doll wardrobe is not too much stuff. 

Elliott being teacher

Sand pile kids

Cheyenne laying down in school

A tylenol-ed Lincoln was feeling perkier.

With the extra daylight, we decided to walk home. Justin was boiling, so it was just the kids and I.

Buds and sky

Canada Goose by the pond.

They didn't trust us. Surprisingly.

I had this theory, that if I exhausted the kids, they would sleep well and Monday morning after the time change would be relatively painless. It didn't really work. But it was fun trying it out.