Well the syruping season is upon us and spring is on the way, even though we've had quite a cold snap lately. It's been betwen -10 and -18 C the last 4 nights and the sap has stopped running. Our first run lasted over a week and we have roughly 4 gallons of boiled syrup right now. Two weeks ago I tapped 65 trees in our bush and it ran steadily for the next 6-7 days. We built a wood-fired burner with a 10 gallon pan on top. I put a sap bucket over that with a small hole in the bottom of it for the sap to drip into the pan. This way we can maintain a boil with out cooling the pan too much. I have to check it roughly every half hour to 45 minutes and put more sap in the bucket. Works pretty sweet! Pardon the pun. It's a lot of work hauling all of the sap, but well worth it. Spending so much time outside and in the woods at this time of year is great, not to mention the many wildlife and nature sightings that present themselves. It has been nice to have a break the last few days, but I think I'm ready for another boil. I hope we have a good second run and send out a greeting to all those other folks scattered across eastern north America huddled in sugar shacks and carrying on the tradition.
Happy Sugarin'
Alexis
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