BACK HOME TO A LATE SAP RUN

THE WIND SLED IS RUNNING AGAIN...

...THE ICE ROAD IS CLOSED

Thursday. 8:00 AM.  40  degrees F in Bayfield, WI, 41 degrees in Weatherford, TX.  But Bayfield still has  five foot or snow on the roadsides.  The channel is still snow covered but the ice road is closed and the wind sled is operating again.

   We arrived home yesterday about 4:00 PM, road weary but otherwise O.K.  It was an uneventful trip home, straight up I39 most of the way. It was evidently too early for burning the Kansas Flint Hills prairies, as we saw no evidence of fires. Our biggest immediate  challenge is going through a months accumulation of mail.  We are still weeks away from most gardening tasks except for some tree and shrub pruning.  A note of caution on tree pruning; oaks should not be pruned until they are well leafed out and growing vigorously, as this is the time of year that oak wilt spreads most readily via pruning wounds.  Another note of caution of a totally different type; the US government has signed the UN treaty on small arms trading, and although it has little chance of being ratified by the US Senate, this is a dangerous potential infringement of our Second Amendment rights and another step towards a world dictatorship, and I urge everyone to contact their senators to be sure they vote against this dangerous treaty.

   The maple sap is running now, actually quite late, and since cold nights and warm days are the key to a good sap run, things can change quickly at any time now.  The last few years the sap run has been rather unproductive at least in Wisconsin, so we hope things are better this spring.