Finally Friday (March 8, 2013)

We had a really fun evening in the woods. Everyone a little joyous about it being the end of the week!! Glad to have Jack back, he looks a little like a glazed donut from the time change. Lots of elves in the woods tonight along with a good amount of sap. The Rine's were joined by Dean, Nancy, Ted, Adam, Susan B. and Mr. Boots (2 days in a row!), Ryan, Kevin, Dale and Karen. Brad drove and Dale dumped buckets most of the way. 

 Kelsey attempting to use Ryan for kindling. Ryan too tired to put up much of a fight.(This is the only work Kelsey did tonight that we know of)

 

 Funny how there is less conversation as the evening goes on. Picture above, almost done.

 

 Gathered 505 gallons tonight. Sandhill Rd. forrest produced 22!

 Ryan catches on quickly and is still smiling near the end of gatherng!

(

Pretty scene with friends and neighbors scurrying to empty buckets while I do nothing but take pictures.)

The boilermaker's horse was lame tonight, so he showed up late and got a little cranky when we told him he had to show up early tomorrow! The taps were dripping at a good clip tonight, so if it cools down this eve tomorrow should be a great day.

We keep a sample of each 5 gallon bucket of syrup we take off of the evaporator. There has been little color variation and every bucket grades "fancy"-by industry standards this is the best, we like the darker stuff a little better! Unusual to have that many buckets in a row of that grade.

 

Running 41.5 gallons of sap to each gallon of syrup according to guy above.

We had lots of food tonight and made smores in the fire box for the first time. Fire box was allowed to burn down by 9:15pm or so. Yea!

Total sap: 2392 gallons
Total syrup: 50.5 gallons