Takin' it Easy

 West Branch, MI  73 degrees, predicted high 80 degrees.  See that Clarinda, IA is forecast to be 90 there today with much higher humidity.

Bill and granddaughter Courtney fishing on lake right behind their house.  Although they each snagged one fish, they didn't get any into the boat.

 Have had no bugs, mosquitoes, bothering us at all.  Amazing.  At right - Phyllis & Darlene picking Red Raspberry - picture of the pie below.

Ducks on the lake behind Winslow's house

Fresh Red Raspberry pie.

Yesterday we went a few miles north to a Maple Syrup Farm.

Their son actually owns the operation and his parents, who showed us around, help out.  They live at the site of the operation.  I think he said they had 111,000 maple trees at that site and another 110,000 maple trees at another site that they bring the sap by small tank wagons to work it here.

They use wood to fire the boiler and also use an osmosis process that cuts down quite a bit on the amount of water that they boil off.  Picture of that osmosis apparatus is next.

Even though the trees are all tapped to a piping system and it is vacuumed in, there still requires a lot of labor in the process of getting the 100 gallon of sap, in some cases, down to one gallon of syrup.

At entrance to their "Sugar House"

Some of the hose used to vacuum the sap from the trees to the Sugar House.

Some of Bill's flowers.





We are leaving here tomorrow morning, driving to Frankenmuth, MI to visit the Christmas store and then on to Ed & Brenda Wood's place in Bienheim, Ontario, right on the edge of Lake Erie.  Hope to spend a few days there and then head north and east to some more Kenwood RV Park friend's places.

Later, Lynn