Thursday February 26, 2016
Day #8

This is one of those days when you are shocked that it is STILL the same day as when you arose. Winter storm Petros dumped a little snow and a little wind overnight and timed it right that this was a pretty & snowy day until almost 4 pm. Most of the schools were closed today. Bob is still not feeling great so he took advantage of the day to work on school work laced with naps.

Later this afternoon he drove over to the woods to put a new tote of firewood in the camp. This turned into a fiasco as the forklift got him to the woods, but only a quarter of the way back to the barn. So he ended up walking to the camp. So much for taking it easy tonight. He started a fire and boiled a little and decided perhaps if we could get some help around to gather tonight that would be wise. Ted, Adam, Dale, Karen, Gerri, Muff, Susan B and Dean got most of the woods with Brad arriving late. Dale has a sore back from jumping in and out of Wallie on the Tuesday night adventure so Gerri drove. This was fun at first, not really so much anymore.

Bob almost ran out of sap so we took took the 100 gallons from the tank to the camp and then proceeded on to the north path where the gatherer's were way ahead, enough to have found an enormous oak tree down on the far west end , ....and of course , across the path. Cell phone call to Bob had him soon on his way with a chain saw, so he ended up walking the entire distance of the woods with the chain saw. So much for taking it easy tonight. He and Dean quickly removed the top of the tree and cleared the path, the others had worked forward some by that time. More sap on the north tonight by far.

This is the large tree that fell.






Chuck was late today and was reprimanded. He did not find the camp to be very tidy and had to say something to the affect that it was not his fault. It has been a no frills kinda week so he was fortunate that Bob remembered he even needed wood. The totes seem to be full of more scrap and lower quality lumber, so firing was a little frustrating again tonight.

Bob left the camp to see if he could get the forklift to start as it is sitting in the middle of the lane.He failed at this task, so much for taking it easy.  While he was gone nobody realized that the top tank was going dry so there were some exciting and dark moments when Bob came back and hand carrried in some sap. we did not manage to run the boiler dry, but came a little closer than we would like to admit. Bob got a little running exercise between buildings for a short time too. So much for taking it easy tonight. The forklift had to be towed to the barn. Dale and Brad did that and Brad has a colorful story of how all that went down with grandpa forgetting that he could not steer at all and a lot of mud holes and NO fenders over the tires. 

Finished with a tad more light today than on tuesday! We found 280 gallons of sap today and Sandhill Rd provided 28. We ate and sat a bit. Muff and Gerri were pretty sure it was almost 12 about 715pm. Getting old. Susan B pointed out that she felt too old to do this. We kinda laughed and ignored her. The most intellectual conversation of the evening was whether or not we loved Mark enough to send him a brownie even though he did nothing to help tonight. Really sad stuff. As of 9 pm there was about 5 inches left in the top tank so they should be headed home soon.



Lots of pretty pictures taken today that somebody is NOT going to stay up late enough to download in here. Maybe tomorrow.


Total Sap Today: 280 plus Sandhill 28
Total Sap To Date: 1540 gallons
Total Syrup Off Today: 9 gallons
Total Syrup Off To Date: 23 gallons

Adam's view on the way out!