Thursday
Linda
The Ancient One
She’s not pretty and appears to be as old as Methuselah with her bent and twisted limbs. She is frightening to most when they see her lightening strike scared bark and she could be the star of any horror film with a group of black crows resting upon her craggy branches. The sapling youth of this Sugar Maple is long passed, but the sweet sap of life still courses through her veins.
She’s a hard worker this one, producing the sweetest and largest quantity of sap than any of our other trees. Hopefully the old girl will continue to work for us for many more syrup seasons. She has stood strong for these last hundred or so years, through many a violent storm, but I fear her time is coming. Each year the storms tear a little more of her away.
So think on this the next time you open your bottle of sweet Maple syrup. Remember that a scary ancient tree gave you the best syrup you ever tasted. And we all know that would be Pot Hole Farm Maple syrup. So get your taste buds ready. Its Maple Syrup time.
Off-Grid in West Virginia 
No she is not talking about me being old.
is it safe???
Kind of safe. We check it after each wind storm.
At our last place we had 2 100+ year old sugar maples. They were within 25 ft of the old Victorian house we owned. One year one split off half and clipped the corner of the porch as it came down. We knew it needed to come down. A year ago July third we had a storm come through with sheer winds that took the other top and dropped it across the kitchen and our girls bedroom upstairs. Thank God it came down at an angle and rolled off but still cracked the trusses and put a hole in the roof. They were sleeping in the room at the time. We had to cut them down. Very sad. They had seen much in their time. I think she’s a lovely old tree! Our scars are what give us character! 🙂
Thank goodness your girls were not hurt. I’m sure that gave them a good scare and you too!
Great story Linda!
Thank you Carol. Glad you enjoyed it.:)
Hello Linda, So glad I landed on your blog! I found your site after having a FB debate with friends of Lee Zeidler (an old Navy buddy). As I was preparing a snarky response to Sonny I thought I should at least take a minute to get to know a bit about my opponent. Perusing his FB profile I saw the old pick-up, then the off grid living, and finally self sustaining lifestyle. I no longer had any snarky in me! I too have no background in what you do (although I do have 20 acres in the country that would be perfect for off grid living) but want to do this in the near future when we return to the states to settle and retire a bit early.
You have an nice writing style. Thanks for sharing your lives with the rest of us wannabe off grid types.
Warm regards,
– Dana
Thanks Dana, I try to leave all politics off this blog. We have learned a lot while doing this but it’s all good. If you get time I recommend you start from the beginning and see how things progress. Enjoy.