Mar 9
Picture perfect weather all day. 27 degrees this am coasting up to a balmy 53 this afternoon. The guys spent the morning using the buzz saw to replenish the wood boxes. Mr. Boilermaker started a fire around noon to work on the "leftover"sap from yesterday. We had sandwiches for lunch and did odds and ends since the weather was the best of year thus far. Took the time today to change filters etc. Several friends and neighbors stopped in for a visit today.
A hearty gang showed up to gather at 4:30 including the Oney Family (Caleb we miss you), Mr Boots and his spry wife, the ever dependable Clark family, Jerry, Chris, Dan (almost a regular -this is more fun than P90X huh?!), Karen, Muff, Brad drove tractor and Dale dumped buckets. Amazing how much drier it is today than yesterday! The temperature cools off quickly such that it is still advisable to wear carharts, but we all were a little red faced by the end today. We gathered in a different pattern tonight which totally screwed even the natives up. It is fun if you can just walk, but if you throw having to think in there, it really SAPS you out. We enjoyed pizza and the warm fire and fellowship for some time (thank you Papa Jimmies for being quick!)
We found 633.5 gallons of sap tonight. The buds are coming out rapidly on the soft maples so they are on the "watch" list to get the taps pulled, likely soon. Sandhill Rd made a contribution of 13.5 gallons. It seems there is an unusual amount of sap sitting in the camp this year.
We shut the fire down around 9:45pm tonight with A LOT of sap still in the side shed. 14 hours of fresh air was about all we could take and certainly more than Lola could stand. (She has quickly habituated to seeing the carharts go on and waiting by the truck to go to the woods!
It has been pointed out to the blogger that the blog got pretty behind on posts. The blogger would like to point out to the boilermaker that STOPPING stoking the fire a little earlier would help in the future.
Total Sap: 3025.5 gallons
Total Syrup: 66 gallons (this is great!)-all "fancy grade" thus far
Conversion Ratio: 39.3:1 (includes sap still in camp)