Feb 27

Really lousy weather day with a surprisingly HUGE sap run. Brad, Bob and Gerri went to the woods expecting to check buckets and pick up 200 gallons of sap. We decided, given that the weather was so unpleasant and we didn't anticipate much, we would not to even send out a text. We changed our minds about 10 minutes into the south path when we quickly encountered multiple buckets running over!

The picture above is the filter on top of the sap tank filled to within a half inch of the top. This luckily coincided with the end of the south path. Chris showed up in time to head out to the north path. We weren't able to make it back to the camp after the north path so took the short cut out into the field on the east side and Bob dumped the tank the second time while the rest of us collected the east path backwards. Ted came in time to do the East path primarily in the dark. Gerri considers it a  great accomplishment that she did not "face plant" once tonight. Fun physics fact, somehow, buckets get heavier as the night goes on. Finished around 8 pm with 825 gallons of sap gathered by the small but mighty crew!

We particulary appreciate Chris and Ted for helping us this unpleasant evening. Brad said on the way home they are gonna need double time for this "wicked shift". (It was quite pretty at times this eve, with a soft snow, but little time spent smelling the roses and all the precipitation was wet no matter how you slice it!)  On a positive note we did not get stuck tonight, just a little jockeying around with the trailer. On a down side, the valve at the bottom of the upper tank is toast. Complicating this is the fact that there are 400 gallons of sap in this tank! Not sure how we are going to address this, but...unanimous vote that we were all cold, tired, wet and hungry and this problem can wait for another day.

Total Sap: 1,085 gallons
Total Syrup: A question for another day :)