Christmas

We returned to Winston Salem a few hours ago and this is the local "scenery". Not what Carolinian's are accustomed to around here. Our co-managers said that no one would come to work here this morning, although the roads were clear. They had to drive out to pick up one of our employees but no one else would come in. Amazing !

We had a nice time up home for the holiday. We left right after work Thursday around 3:30 p.m.and drove to my son's place in Media, PA. We arrived there around 11:30. Our time was impeccable as my daughter's bus, in from Boston, arrived just before we did so we all got to Jay's house around the same time. We were all exhausted from a long day of driving (or riding) so we didn't stay up long to chat.

The next morning Jay made us breakfast and Linda, Becky and I headed out for my mom's house. I stayed Friday and Saturday night at my mom's. All of my family came to mom's house so it was good to see everyone. Saturday night I went up to my brother, Jim's house, to see his new evaporator that he uses to process maple syrup. It's a monster of a machine. It's twice as big as the one he used to have. With this one, he can do 225 gallons of sap and hour ! Wow... He currently has 2600 tree taps out, ready to gather sap for this next season. Last year, Jim produced 600 gallons of syrup....a down year from what he thought he'd produce.  This evaporator runs off fuel oil, whereas his previous one ran off of wood and needed to be tended to much more often to maintain the heat.

The other thing that my brother dabbles in, as a side business is his honey business. He has all of his hives "wintering" and hopes to have a better year of survival than last year. He lost around 70% of his bees last year, due to some unknown thing that is affecting many  bee colonies. He produces honey, candles and all sorts of by products. He takes all of his maple and honey items to different craft shows in the northeast during the fall months and sells them. He just finished up his season so he and his wife are exhausted and ready for some R & R.

Speaking of which...long days ahead. Since we took the extra day off for the holiday, we now have three, twelve hour days ahead of us before our co-managers come back to work. With that I'll bid you good night...Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and will have an even better New Year !