We had family up this weekend. My uncle (nicknamed “bruncle” by my neighbors, given our close proximity in age) drove up from Rhode Island, which is always great. Daphne loves seeing him and his dog Toby, and he always comes with balloons for her which inevitably end up scattered all over the house.

On Saturday we drove up to Canaan, a little town right on the borders between Vermont, New Hampshire, and Canada. Canaan is actually where we began our Vermont journey, so there’s some nostalgia involved in going back there. And Daphne still loves the town playground, their slides in particular.

After a couple hours swinging, sliding, and jumping, it was time for lunch. So we headed to April’s Maple for hot dogs and maple creemees.

Oh, that one might bear explanation for you non-Vermonters…

A “maple creemee” is essentially just maple-flavored soft-serve ice cream. But it’s A Vermont Thing and it certainly ranks among the good ones. (I mean, you had me at “ice cream.”)
We’ve actually put together a list of “The 9 Best Maple Creemees in Vermont,” with the suggestions culled from a thread in Reddit. Our plan is to try each of these over the summer and determine which is, empirically, The Best Maple Creemee in Vermont.

Now, will we make it to all 9 of these in the 10 weeks that comprises Daphne’s summer?
No. Probably not.
Will we make it to all of them before they stop selling creemees for the year?
I hope so. But if not they’ll just roll over to the 2025 list. (Yes, I’m making up the rules as I go here.)

Regardless we’ll have more to say about that as the summer goes on…

For now, back to April’s Maple.

We ordered our food and, because the weather was beautiful, waited for it patiently at the pickup window so we could eat outside.

After lunch we headed home and laid low for the rest of the evening.

On Sunday we decided to take a hike along the Lamoille Rail Trail, which is less of a “hike” and more “an easy stroll.”

Daphne absolutely loves the tunnels on this trail.

All told we walked for about 2 hours.
50 minutes out, 50 minutes back, and 20 minutes of tunnel stompin’.

Anyway, it’s a lovely trail and makes for a very easy nature walk. Parents with strollers, wheelchairs, and/or little bicycles take note: this is a fantastic spot for all of these.
The trail entrance is also close to St. Johnsbury, so a bite to eat afterward is within relatively easy walking distance.
That said, I don’t think I’d try to make it there on any kind of non-motorized vehicle… The path near the functional railroad line is pretty gravely and the traffic coming off the freeway tends to move at a pretty good clip. So locomoting next to the road with my kid would be a non-starter for me; obviously your mileage may vary.

And I rounded out the weekend by dropping a super on top of the new beehive when we got home.

This being Vermont, that is not what’s known as a “honey super” on top of the “brood box.”
It’s been my experience so far that our girls need 2 boxes worth of brood and honey in order to make it through winter. (With a pack of Hive Alive fondant for good measure.)
But!
If they start to fill that second one with brood, I might just put a third box on top in a vain effort to get a little honey before the Goldenrod and Queen Anne’s Lace of autumn fade and they shut up shop for the winter. If that happens, it would make for the very first drop of honey from these hives since I started keeping bees 2 years ago.
Guess we’ll find out.

In predator news, I think we’ve found the responsible party behind the torn up chicken feeder and, despite my original assumptions, it does not appear to be the bear.
Instead, it’s this jerk right here:

We believe this masked jackhole is the culprit behind all the feeder mayhem we’ve seen so far this spring. Which also means he’s probably tried several times to open the door to the coop and get at the sleeping chickens found therein.
Could be that we need to work on a fastener or something for the latch. Hmm…

Anyway that’s about all I’ve got here for today. See you tomorrow.

j.s.