And the winner is…

And the winner of the maple syrup contest is…

Prepare yourselves.  Hold your breaths.  Hope that you win and get that sweet Upper Peninsula maple syrup to dollop on your oatmeal, in your granola, atop your French Toast, in your peanut butter cookies.

OK, I’m not telling you the winner at the very beginning of this post.

All good stories contain a beginning, a middle and an end.

Let’s start at the beginning.  All you newcomers please read this post that I wrote last weekend:  Who wants to win a pint of maple syrup?

First, I wrote down the names of all the contestants

While you’re gone perusing that post, we’ll wait for you.  I’ll converse with the other readers.  Yes, the ice melted on the bays.  Yes, the snow is gone. Maybe you can glimpse a snowbank hither and yon, but mostly it’s spring. We spotted our first male hummingbird on May 9th.  Simultaneously, another Aura resident posted she had glimpsed her first hummingbird. They’re back!

No wildflowers yet, but I saw daffodils blooming alongside the Skanee Post Office last week.  Spring peepers have been heard.  Folks couldn’t believe how late the spring peepers peeped.

OK, now that everyone has returned after reading about the contest, let’s continue to the middle of the story.

Then I cut all the 31 names into little squares of paper

All contests must be above-board.

All prize-winners must be chosen in an excruciatingly fair manner.

One mustn’t internally root for so-and-so.

One mustn’t believe that someone who reads every post should win. Conversely, one mustn’t believe that a close friend or relative should win. Nor, should the poorest among us necessarily receive the tantalizing gift. Wealth, circumstance, friendship, readership, age,  and sex can not be considered as the hand digs in the winter chook for the winner’s name.

One must allow the Universe to choose the winner, for whatever reasons the Universe deems best.

Then I found an appropriate chook (also known as winter hat)

I have won some contests in my life, and do know a teeny tiny bit about the energetics which sometimes assist one in universal winning of prizes.

May I share those secrets with you, now that it’s too late for this contest?

Often, in order to win, one must truly want to win.  A positive attitude helps.  Or…more of a resonance.  One feels that she & the prize are simpatico, compatible, already friends.  Something inside resonates.  YES! says the inner spirit.  I shall enter this contest.

However, if one pants & salivates over the dangling prize, one usually won’t win.  The Universe simply won’t comply.  I do not know why this doesn’t work.  If you want the prize too much…well, who knows why it doesn’t work?

It doesn’t work for me, anyway. It’s a degree of delighted anticipation (briefly felt) coupled with oh-who-cares-because-something-better-will-come-along that brings forth our prize jewels.

Disclaimer.  Even when one sizzles with the appropriate energy, it still may not happen.  That’s because the Universe eyes all of us equally.  It has its own reasons, which may even–though I refuse to believe it–be random and chaotic.

I have won a Mickey Mouse watch, a ham, a set of Santas and Snowmen, and three free nights in a Hilton anywhere around the world.

Have you ever won anything?

Now that I’ve babbled on about prize-winning energetics, let’s cut to the chase.

And the winner is…

You’re dying to know whether you won, aren’t you?

Don’t you dare scroll down to the end to cheat!

Shall we have the drum roll, please?

My hand is in the chook.

It is digging for the winner.

The winner is…

Barb, and her friend, Mary

Barb from Colorado!

Oh good.

Barb is a regular commenter on this blog and loves the Upper Peninsula because one of her best friends lives up on the Keweenaw Peninsula during summer months.  Barb has even visited our fair shores.  She lives in Colorado, takes fabulous photos, and shares lovely tales of her days.

Her blogs, which I do hope you visit, are:

Live and Learn and One Good Thing

Congratulations, my friend, and may the maple syrup arrive unbroken and unscathed to the mountains of Colorado from the shores of Lake Superior…

For those of you who didn’t win…you are ALL still winners in my heart!