I always feel a lot better after a good ride. Though winter wasn’t much to speak of, I still missed swingin’ a leg over and blasting out some miles.

One of the familiar sights along the this time of year is the maple syrup operations that take place out in the woods. As you may well know, maple syrup (the real stuff) is made from tree sap that is collected and boiled down to make the sticky, tasty substance we call sugar. The stand of trees is a “sugar bush” and a boiling house is a sugar shack. People go “sugaring” for several days at a time 24 hours a day.

The sap starts running as soon as the day time temps hit the 40’s and will run as long as it gets cold at night. It starts out “light fancy” (what your kids would like) and goes to light amber, medium amber, dark amber and finally B grade. B grade is pure maple flavor with less sweetness.

Maple syrup has some wonderful properties. It can sterilize and help heal wounds and just 1/2 teaspoon in a glass of milk will give you “sweet” dreams and help you sleep soundly.

You can make syrup from other trees such as birch. We have several maple trees. The oldest is a “lone wolf” which has several odd branches going in all directions. I am not sure why these trees look so different. Perhaps the prolific growth is a survival technique.

I finished an aluminum road racing frame today. We found a few pair of double tapered seat stays and used the first pair on this frame. I really like working with them. They are 1mm thick (thin) wall and are 11mm at each end and around 18mm in the center where the bridge is.

It was sorta hard welding 1mm wall aluminum tubes. I didn’t mind.

I won’t have pics of this one till next week some time. Have a nice week!