Aspirations for next winter

I was sifting through some stories and photos from the Central Maine newspapers and ran across this awesome snow fort photo.

Michael Neal and his son Dillan play in a snow fort they built in St. Albans recently. Photo courtesy Katrina Giles

My girls thought their snow cave at Pondicherry was cool but it never occurred to us to paint it. 

We now have something to aspire to next winter!

If you have a photo of a snow fort, snowman or winter sculpture you've built, share it with us!
Upload your photos to My.MaineToday.com

Exploring trails, ice sliding and 'BaaRamEwe'

The kids and I are working with a group of 4-Hers volunteering to do some trail work at Wolfe's Neck Farm this spring. We attended a meeting yesterday at the farm to walk the existing trail system to get a sense of the work needed to be done and what the kids could do.

Of course the meeting was planned a while back and we didn't anticipate at that time that yesterday would be one of the coldest days of the year.

But we were prepared wearing all our warmest cold weather gear to hike the trails and the temps didn't bother the kids a bit.

Laying down on the icy snow wouldn't have occured to me, even wearing my snowpants and warmest mittens. But hey, they're kids and they simply couldn't resist goofing around in the wooden structure.

They also did a lot of sliding - intentionally - down the hills when the adults stopped for a minute to talk about a particular area of the trail.

Who needs a sled when the snow is frozen solid?

This got the top score for sliding hills yesterday.

Sliding fun on the icy snow


And being 4-Hers, they couldn't resist spending some time in the barn. They used a pole to break up the ice in the goat's water trough. And after discovering that the cows had heaters to keep their water from freezing it didn't take G. long to wonder if we could get a heater for our coop. There's no question she has a tough job in the winter with our chickens and ducks' water.

The kids also enjoyed feeding the cows and sheep hay.

"Cow king of the hill!"

And the kids spent some time communicating with the sheep the Babe way. They did a pretty good impression of "BaaRamEwe."

Weird cow eyes, BaaRamEwe and flying hay


There's a variety of programs for kids of all ages at the farm throughout the year if you've got an animal-lover in your family.
Education programs at Wolfe's Neck Farm

All of us finally get to mountain -- together

We finally made it to Shawnee Peak with Fino yesterday (he took the afternoon off from work). It's taken us all winter to coordinate the family schedule for us to downhill/board together.

It was windy when we arrived around 4 p.m. (love the Monday Madness special) and the wind chill temps plummeted by the minute. But that didn't stop us from having a good time. And in what seems to be tradition now, I took some video of the kids while I was boarding down the mountain myself. I'm beginning to think I'm pretty good at multi-tasking on the mountain while not hurting myself in the process. But there will be no video of me getting off the chair lift; I still can't master that one.




But L. was still a little hesitant about downhill skiing again on this trip. She hasn't forgotten her fall earlier this season and it took me suggesting she had "magic gloves" to get her to loosen up. Actually, I was in rare form on the chair lift with the girls yesterday.



I know, I was being weird but I had worked all morning so I was a little tired...

And as I said, I fall a lot getting off the lift (more often than not I must admit). I really wish other skiers and riders would heed the signage at the top of the mountain that asks them to move out of the way once they are off the lift. I get myself so worried I'm going to plow into someone (with only one boot strapped in, I don't have as much control -- and I'm not the best boarder to begin with ...) and hurt the people who stand right at the base of the lift. Instead I end up trying to stop before I have control off the chair and trip myself up. But it's not always other people either; sometimes I fall when no one is around - I'm special that way.

On one of those falls I managed to knock one of my bindings out of whack. But luckily Fino had a penny in his pocket and managed to fix things up well enough for me to get down to the bottom of the mountain.

My handy-man hero.

He nearly got frostbite trying to fix my binding because the wind chill was so strong and cold and he couldn't manage the penny and bindings with his gloves on. But it turned out that the penny was more worse for the wear than he was.

And as we were taking off our gear at the end of the night, G. reported that her boots had really hurt. I think she's due for some new ones next year since this is the second year she's had issues with those boots.

We joked that she was bitten by a vampire on the mountain. And note the Christmas socks, just like last year :-)

Oh, and I have to mention this because L. was so insistant that I could not cover up her old trail pass with the new one.

" 'Ski the cow' is too funny to cover mom!"

The pass from our afternoon cross country skiing at Smiling Hill Farm.

Sweet season is underway

We're starting to see the taps on the trees around southern Maine and the kids are anticipating eating all the special maple syrup treats.

A couple of years ago I wrote a column about sugaring season and decided last week to compile my video clips from that sugar house visit. It's pretty interesting to learn about the process of boiling sap - and eye-opening at the labor-intensiveness of it all. It seems to me to be more a labor of love by the people I've met who do it.




Maine Maple Sugar Sunday is March 25 this year. That's the day sugar houses around the state open their doors for visitors. You can see how the process works for yourself and sample (most sugarhouses offer free samples) all kinds of tasty treats.
Find a sugar house near you

And after you've got some syrup, you can try out some tasty recipes (or take L.'s suggestion).
Maple sugar season recipes

If you or your family go to a sugar house or tap trees and boil down the sap yourself, send us your photos!
Post your photosPost your stories about sugaring season

Between the sweet treats and the mud, it's a great season in Maine to be a kid!
Visiting a sugar house Mud "fun"

No time to breathe

I've had one of those weeks, the kind that are so crazy busy I wonder what the heck I was thinking when I agreed to all the things on my family's calendar. My time management skills - and those of the girls - were put to a serious test this past week. It all started last Saturday....

SATURDAY
I had to work until 12:30 and Fino had to be at work at noon that day. So the plan was that the kids were going to hang out at Fino's work until I could get there to pick them up. But before going to work he and the girls were stopping by the Engineering Expo because they all really wanted to go (Fino had as much fun as the kids did there). So although the morning was going to be hectic, it was do-able and pretty typical for us.

But no, that was only the first part of the day, there was more.

We had scheduled Ski Club on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. because we couldn't make our regular meeting time on Sunday (I'll get to the reasons why in a minute). So after picking up the girls from Fino's work we had to get home to put on our ski gear, load up the car and meet up with the Ski Club.

But we could only ski for 90 minutes on the trail because then we had to get back home so the girls could change into their dance clothes for their Snow White rehearsal at 5 p.m.

Well, we've had crazy days like this before but I didn't get enough sleep the night before (I have to be at the office at 5 a.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays) and I got really frazzled at home picking up our ski gear.

And when I get frazzled, I do stupid things. So what did I do this time? I backed the van into a snow bank in my driveway.

And no, I couldn't push myself out of the snow even with some help from the kids. So I called Grandpa and he helped us out and we made it to Ski Club about 10 minutes late (yes, it could have been worse but since I had changed the day and time of the meeting I was really worried everyone would leave thinking they misunderstood my schedule change).

I find exercising helps me to re-focus and by the end of Ski Club, I was feeling a little less stressed. I drove the kids home so they could get changed into dance clothes and then dropped them off at rehearsal.

I called Fino afterwards with a plea to pick them up at 8 p.m. when the rehearsal was over. I just needed to go to bed and get some sleep; Sunday was shaping up to be just as crazy.

SUNDAY
I had to work again at 5 a.m. and knew I wouldn't be getting back home until late. The girls and I were signed-up to take Seen Team pictures at the Pirates game that afternoon. Since I live about 35 minutes from Portland (and not done with work until 1:30ish), and I have to be at the Civic Center about an hour before the game begins to take the pictures (around 3 p.m.), it didn't make sense to go home and then come back into town.

But the girls had a Snow White dress rehearsal/preview show that afternoon and wouldn't be able to get to the Civic Center until 4 p.m.ish. So Fino said he would bring them to the Civic Center to drop them off so they could still see the game (L. does NOT like to miss her Pirates games). We had it planned that he would call me when he arrived at the Civic Center doors so I could meet the girls and take them into the game (Fino opted not to go, smart man). That was the plan.

What neither Fino nor I took into account was the fact that the girls would be in full face make-up for the preview show (G.'s an enchanted tree and L.'s a deer). It took a long time for the girls to wash up after the show. Fino rushed them along and met me at the Civic Center much later than planned. But after the girls jumped out of the van and watched Fino drive down the street, we realized that they forgot the tickets in the van! So Fino did a loop around the Civic Center and I jumped the curb to grab them.

It was worth the effort to get L. to this game though even though it was hectic and she missed almost the whole first period. She truly does enjoy being there and she's not happy about missing the biggest game of the season on March 10 when the Pirates play Hershey (she gave up chocolate in hopes that the Pirates would beat them last year). She has a Snow White performance that night.

We got home around 7 p.m. and after a bite to eat, I sat down to plan the girls' Book Club meeting for the next day. But after calling one of the other moms, I realized it wasn't my week to organize the meeting but having already done most of the planning by that point, I opted to just do it. My brain was operating in overdrive anyway.

MONDAY
I worked at the office again Monday morning (got there at 6:30 a.m. instead). Then after picking the girls up from Grandpa's house that afternoon, I had to get all my teaching supplies together for the book club. After the club meeting, I chatted with my friend Meg, who was also having "one of those weekends" and we took solace in the fact that we weren't alone in managing our respective family schedule craziness.

TUESDAY
I had planned that part of this day needed to be set aside for the girls to  finish their 4-H Fashion Revue projects. They had parts of their projects done but needed to finish them so they could be turned by the deadline (Friday). So I pulled out the sewing machines (we have 2) to get them started. But I quickly discovered that neither machine was sewing correctly. Yeah, they technically worked but the tension was off and I couldn't figure it out and didn't want the girls to get marked down on their projects because of the machine's stitching. Fino's the handyman of the family and he had a class that night so he wouldn't be home until late to tweak things.

But Grandpa came to the rescue again when I asked to borrow his machine, which worked perfectly. 

The girls worked on their projects for a while before heading off to their dance classes. L. has class in Limington from 4:30-5:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and G. has class from 5-6:30 p.m. in Gorham. Yes, yes, I know it is CRAZY to do that kind of driving back and forth but the girls each love their respective class and are a good fit for each them (ability and group-wise). 

WEDNESDAY
More sewing time was needed to finish up their projects -- which really did come out well  and both were pleased with the results. Then it was off to play outside with their friends in the snow. They needed some unstructured fun time and wanted to celebrate the completion of their sewing projects.

THURSDAY
L. came down with a 102.5 fever and all activities came to a screeching halt. Yes, this is where you blame me for making her sick because of our crazy schedule. But we did have to make a quick run to the 4-H office to drop off their Fashion Revue projects a day before the deadline in anticipation of the big snow storm. I'm really glad I did that because ....

FRIDAY
 ... it was a SNOW DAY! It was just what we needed (even though I worked from home all morning) -- a lazy day! I just love a well-timed Maine snow storm.

And yes, L. is feeling much better now - and so am I.

A view from the coop

Someone asked the girls recently if our other chickens were having problems  this winter (as if all our chickens were freezing like poor Flipper was).

Nope, they aren't. The Almeida poultry is quite comfortable out in the coop and don't seem to mind snow storms - like today's - at all.

And they even have a nice picture window in the coop (a glass sliding door recycled from the dump thanks to a very resourceful Fino) to watch the storm.

A chicken's view of the storm today

Snow painting fun

Armed with spray bottles mixed with food coloring and cold water - along with cake molds from the kitchen - the kids and their friends spent a fun afternoon outside creating works of art in the snow.

The kids used cake molds to create snow "sculptures" and then used the spray bottles to make them more colorful. The kids loved the "paint." And it was quite amusing to realize that they didn't realize my friend Meg had recycled the bottles. L. thought it really was window cleaner at first (see video).

One of the girls preferred to make her own design in the snow.

The KEY to making the snow "paint" is putting the mixed recipe (see below) into the spray bottle and putting the bottle into the fridge for at least an hour before the kids are going to use it. I've tried snow painting before with less than ideal results but by keeping the mixture COLD, it works a whole lot better.

And while the others were painting, G. discovered the perfect snowball maker - a kitchen laddle.

She scooped them out quickly and every one came out perfectly.


Snow Painting Fun




Snow Paint Recipe
* spray bottle
* Food coloring

Fill each spray bottle with COLD water
Put several drops of food coloring in the bottle (the more drops, the darker the color)
Place bottle in refridgerator for an hour or leave outside for a while so that the mixture will be cold. This ensures the "paint" won't melt the snow.
Spray the snow with your colors to create a fun work of art!