The Pleasures of Global Warming

In London SW19. No snowflakes spotted yet but give it time. Temperatures may just creep up above freezing today and the wind is brutal. Meanwhile, hubby reports warm sunshine in Western New York. This will of course change by this time next week, when I'll be back.
A reminder, if you needed it, that I am visiting London, which is currently entering a new ice age. Normal blogging service will resume in a week, with the occasional observation in between. Watch this space....

A Tale of Two Weathers (continued)

Cattaraugus County, Western New York 58 degrees F (14.4C) and sunny
London 2 degrees C (35F) and murky.
Where's the justice?
So much for a spring visit to the UK. I can count the daffodils in bloom on one hand.

Small London Pleasures: The Electric Kettle

  British people, you don't know how lucky you are. Not only do you have electric kettles in Britain but they are fast.  Yes, here on my visit to London, I can switch on a kettle and it will boil in just a few seconds! Imagine that! I spend the whole flight over anticipating the joy.
  Such a thing is, for Western New Yorkers, an impossible dream.  We do have an electric kettle but it wasn't purchased from the local Walmart, where such things are scarce, Americans still preferring the sort that sit on the stovetop and whistle frantically, necessitating a mad scramble to rescue them before it's too late. (Remember those, you elderly Brits?) Our electric kettle had to be brought in from Canada. But, goodness, is it slow! You can safely go out and do the shopping and still come back before it's boiled. Presumably this has something to do with the low voltage in America. But at least, unlike the whistling kind, it does switch itself off.

A Very Local Gift

  In America it's what you put on pancakes. In Britain it's what we bring over as presents for our friends: maple syrup.

 

Walking through the snowy woods up our Western New York lane, you can see the sugar maples – so vividly red in the autumn - looking rather uncomfortable with plastic tubes plugged into their trunks.

 

 In the old days they used to collect the sap in buckets every day but now a network of the tubes feeds the syrup to tanks and thence to pans where the sap is boiled and reduced to make the syrup. It needs something like forty litres of sap to make just one litre of maple syrup.

 

 

  Our neighbour down the road, whose great-grandfather  bought the farm in 1890 and who owns the wooded hill above our house, makes his own maple syrup. During late February and March you can see the wooden “sugar shack” behind the house puffing smoke like a demented steam engine.  The conditions aren't always ideal. As Mark points out,   “ You need freezing nights and warm, sunny says – warm weather, preferably sunshine, makes the sap rise into the branches and the cold nights send it back down to the trunk, where you can collect it.” 

   It also depends on whether the trees are facing south or north, the type of soil, the height above sea-level.. It is not an exact science, more an exciting mix of skill and chance.  “Just when you’ve got it figured out, it goes the other way!”

   Mark doesn't make syrup on a grand commercial scale – just for the family - but that doesn’t make him any less enthusiastic – probably more.  “First, It’s the best sugar you can get – and during the Depression it was our main source of sugar - second it’s such a unique product – you can’t just make it any old time. You only have that little window every year.”   
  He boils the sap over a wood fire “It gives it a better taste –more mapley you know”.  But the most important thing, he says, is that it’s “about family – family camaraderie. I would spend more time with my father during those two months of sugaring than at any other time of year and now it’s the same with my own children.”  
  There was another maple syrup farm up the road - you could buy the stuff in bottles from the local Park and Shop and it actually had the name of our road on it - which made it a pretty good present. But sadly, like many Western New Yorkers, those people have retired to warmer climes. Though we still have one bottle with the label, which we're keeping selfishly, rather like a vintage wine that collectors can't bring themselves to drink. 
  Several places lay claim to the best maple syrup in the world - Canada and Vermont, for example. But there's nothing like knowing the actual trees it came from.     

A Tale of Two Weathers

The weather I left..

Our picturesque route - or at least the first part..

To Buffalo airport, which copes OK in the snow

And the next day on Wimbledon Common, some think  it's spring already ....

Bird Feeder Thieves

  The blog is taking a rest for a couple of days as I'll be in the air on my way back to Blighty for a short visit. Meanwhile, a diverting little episode from a couple of winters back..

  Around our way, you never know who'll be scrounging from the bird feeder...

For a bit of hors d'oeuvres before tackling the evergreens....

Ooh! That was spiky!

Nice porch you've got....

But I don't think much of the catering...

Hey, Fred! Over here!

That's it. If you can't do better than birdseed, I'm outa here...

Footprints in the Snow

In between snowfalls, it's interesting to speculate about who's been around..

...on the scrounge for evergreens, perhaps.. (The mountain laurels are off the menu - they've already been eaten).

Investigating the compost heap, maybe

Or..

....just doing a spot of birdwatching