Mar 12

Another busy day in the woods collecting sap. Helpers included Jenny, Kevin, Nathan, Gary, Susan, Bob & Jack who gathered 290 gallons. 12 gallons were donated from the Sandhill Rd. forest (that crew is considering tapping more trees-they are energetic and consistent!) By the time we finished, the weather had shifted to sleeting. Jack boiled in the morning what we were too sleepy to finish on Wednesday evening. He ran out of wood so Ed helped him replenish the supply in the camp. Jenny is on the good list for bringing sloppy joes to the woods for supper!!

Sap tank storage system, the sap is dumped into the bottom tank and then pumped up into the top tank before being gravity-fed to the evaporator in the other building.

The unusual thing is that the syrup looks just as light as the day we started, typically it will darken the later in the season we are. Our family likes the darker syrup however most folks prefer the lighter syrup, so for our friends, this is a good sign!

Jack took off about 3 gallons of syrup during the day and 8 more gallons in the evening while Chuck fired the evaporator. Sue supervised Chuck's fire-making skills just to be safe. We walked out of the camp for the night around 10:30 pm to find the world white with snow … again!

Total sap: 4,229 gallons

Total syrup: 85 gallons.