Maple Weekend highlights...

During Maple Weekend at my farm, I am swamped with tours, running the production kitchen, helping in the evaporator room and trying to keep my sanity! There are many times throughout the day when I am in the middle of comic situations and am asked a wide variety of ‘unique’ questions. My most favorite is: ‘Does maple syrup really come from a maple tree?’ This past weekend was no exception, but the ‘comic’ situations actually involved my two sons.

We had a girl scout troop here and as they were getting ready to come in for the tour, the gathered outside, and my son Rowan was there with my other son and Victor putting ropes up and getting everything ready for tours. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, he was quite entertaining and talking to all the girls, young and old. Next thing I know, the group piles into the store and in comes Rowan with a pickaxe. And what do I say? “Rowan, what have I told you about bringing the pick axe inside? Go put that outside now please”. I then looked up and saw I had quite the attentive audience of moms and their girls; some looking at me with shocked expressions and some with amused looks. Ugh, I thought, here we go, open mouth insert foot!
I was lucky in that once I explained that we teach our boys to use the tools we use, and that Rowan was helping his dad drive stakes in with the pickaxe and blah, blah, blah….that they seemed to get my drift. I’m sure they were amused that I drew the line at ‘no axes inside’. Ahhhh, the joys of being a farmer and helping others understand the life we lead.


The second, and by far the most amusing thing that happened all weekend took place Sunday morning in the store.
My good friend Suzanne was standing by the counter, among customers when my youngest son Brayden went over to talk with her. He is only three years old, and has been in the who has a penis vs. who has a vagina phase for a while now. So, there the two of them are, with other customers around and what does he ask?
“Suzanne, do you have a Vagina?”
“Yes, Brayden, I do.”
“I have a penis.” He exclaims. At this point, some customers are starting to look at them.
“Oh?” Says Suzanne
“Rowan has a penis,”
“Marc has a penis,”
“And, Mommy has a vagina.” (He always says emphasizing the word vagina, of course.)
“And guess what Suzanne?”
“What Brayden?”.
“Daddy has a really, really big penis.”

Meanwhile, I am oblivious to this interaction, and next thing I know, Suzanne leaves rather quickly. It wasn’t until later that she said she had to leave because she had to sit in my parking lot and laugh - for quite a while.
I wish I had witnessed this, and more especially, seen the look on my customer’s faces. And, I can tell you that Victor turned five shades of red when I told him this story….