Sunday February 21, 2016

Day #5

(Sorry about the texting snafu today, we will try to be more careful in the future! Hope there were not too many naps ruined)

Beautiful day with some sun and warmer than most feb 21st's , but the northeast wind kinda dampened the effect a little.

Yesterday ended at the stroke of midnight. Today began early by chasing Brad and James off the couch and into the big bad day at 0610-hate it when that happens to you on a sunday! Gave Bob's car a swift cleaning and loaded up a list of items most wanted in Kansas....weed wacker, bull/air horn, dental records....we don't ask just try to comply with requests. Picked up Muff and Karen and headed to Columbus for breakfast . Had a great two hour visit with Cody and Amy who drove in from Kansas for a wedding saturday evening and had to head back today.  So glad Kelsey made it up from campus to Dublin, but no Evan today as he was off with Farmhouse duties ...missed you Ev! Home from this adventure by 1:30. We called and passed the phone around the sugar camp tonight so they got to visit to pass some time on their voyage. As of 9:35 pm (eastern time) the brown VW had made its way to within 175 miles of home.  

Happy Birthday Cody!!

Wally got a couple of new bolts thrown in the stair hinges to resolve his injuries from yesterdays mishap. There seemed to be more laughter than usual with this repair job (Brad says this is because he was in charge making this process easier for all and not Bob so he's clearly the better leader).

 

The Bishops brought their friends the Proctor family to visit today. The woods is relatively dry and the weather about as pleasant as it ever gets in Feb so they picked a good day to come.

 Despite having mentioned the woods being the dryest it has been in recent memory, Susan B managed to get her self suctioned into a mud hole. We did help her, but not until we took her picture first. Priorities. Gotta try some video, would make the Bishop boys proud.  Noah, trusting that she knew what she was doing was also in quick sand behind her. Same number of people returned that went out so all is well.

There really was not a lot of sap today, about 200 gallons, but unsure what we would have done with more. Everyone enjoyed the outing anyway! 4 buckets with ants...agh.

So much more fun than reading Mark!!

 

Dinner was a potluck affair tonight, thanks to all who brought something. The boiling process started off well and about 6 pm suddenly became frustratingly slow. Bob thinks may have been the clinkers plugging the air flow off to the bottom of the pan. Having school work to finish and clearly not making progress, Chuck and Bob decided at 715 pm this could be addressed tomorrow. Bob cannot understand why he is tired. Everyone agrees we need a weekend to recover from the weekend!

Lola got a bath and called it a day! Was a borderline call whether she really needed one or not.


Total sap today: 200 gallons plus ? from Sandhill Rd. (bob too tired to check)
Total sap to date: 880 gallons
Syrup off today: 9 gallon
Syrup off to date: 9 gallon