Happy St. Patrick's Day``

Thursday:  If I didn’t know myself that it was St. Patrick’s Day, you would never know it around here – at least in the Charette area – maybe is the city they celebrate it but nothing I saw on tv or any mention from the Bellerives.  Still did not train – it was quite warm and we were supposed to get snow but did not.  Took a morning nap after breakfast for us and dogs.. 

For breakfast we had a first!!  Claude had stopped the day before and got us a Quebec specialty!!!!!  Potato Donuts!!!!  They had maple sugar frosting on them and were very good!!!  It’s crazy (bizarre is what they say here) what you can do with potatoes and never know you are eating them – like the potato candy Mitz makes for Randy – you would never know you start with mashed potatoes!!!

At 6:30 we went up to the sugar shack and it was Melanie, Patrick, Claude and Patrick’s parents, Louise and Yves.  We ordered in dinner and I had the dore (a local fish) and it was the best dinner I have had here!!!  This nite the sap got to a temp of 219 degrees F and we made maple syrup!!!!!!!  Claude sent a bottle home with us from the very first batch!  Randy drank a whole cup of the sap just as it was turning to syrup – plus we had sugar pie for dessert!!!  Randy should have been on a real “sugar high”!!!!  We were there until 10p cause you have to use all the sap that has accumulated in the holding tank and leave the troughs in the boiler still with enough liquid to cool down (without burning it) until the next time  build a fire and pump more sap into the troughs!   I appreciate the syrup way more after watching how much work it is for Claude – just keeping wood enough in the stove to make the boiler boil is work in itself!!!

Friday brings an inch of so of snow and 21degrees F – it’s funny because it still doesn’t feel cold at 21.  We fed dogs and then ate oatmeal with fresh-off-the-boiler maple syrup – yumm!!!!

Time to get stocked with water and pack things away for our trip to Valcartier!  You can look it up on the web – it looks like it should be a fun place to have a race!  It should take us about 3 hours to get there – north of Quebec City.  So I will report when we are there and I have scoped the place out!!!  Over and out!