Mar 6

We had full intentions of gathering the woods today, however, the wind had other plans. With gusts nearing 25 mph, it was decided by Bob that gathering would not occur. Evan and Brad headed to the camp to cut wood so boiling could resume on Friday. While the boys cut wood, Bob cleaned out the ash box from the evaporator, this was more than necessary at this point!

At some point during their work, they decided that maybe they should go out and collect some of the sap that was in the woods because the buckets were getting full. Brad and Evan were willing to risk it with the wind gusts and decided to call in two others they thought might be dumb enough to do the same.

Brad, Evan, and Adam went into the woods to collect with Bob driving Walle close behind them. The original plan was to collect the center path in the woods as it had buckets that were actively running and the buckets were over half full. This path brought in a whopping 325 gallons of sap, which filled the sap tank! Feeling energetic, the guys moved to the east loop collecting another 240 gallons (this was not part of the original plan). Then the foursome moved over to the south path and ran it backwards collecting buckets until the tank was filled again. They collected a total of 650 gallons and left roughly 1.5 paths left to collect.

The night concluded with Evan sending Katie a text in the spirit of “get Adam out of jail”, stating that gathering would not have been possible without his help. We are very grateful for his strong back, inability to say no, and very understanding wife!

No injuries or incidents were reported tonight and all survived the blustery conditions! Brad and Evan are making plans to finish collecting the woods at 8 am tomorrow. It appears another run is on the way and they are hoping to empty as many buckets as they can so we can collect again tomorrow night with a full crew. Bob is planning to fire up the evaporator to begin boiling as all sap storage tanks are full and he will have several hours of boiling ahead of him before collecting again tomorrow.

Buckets were half full and still running, we expect to see this again tomorrow night!

Running Totals

Sap Today: 650 gallons

Sap Gathered to Date: 1,750 gallons

Syrup Bottled to Date: 7 gallons