Monday, February 17, 2020
(President's Day)

Lucky enough to have the first run on a national holiday when some had the day off of their day job!

The first day of the season is always a bit of an adventure... Brad and Bob headed to the woods around 1:30 pm, they worked to finish prepping the camp for the first boil. (However, you'll learn later there were a few items unchecked) The remainder of the crew, consisting of Melissa, Muff, Mary, Nancy, Adam, Katie, and Don arrived at 3:30pm. The lane was a bit slick this evening, as Kelsey found out the hard way, she hitched a ride in the back of Adam's truck. 

The crew got a late start (though normal for the Rine family to run fashionably late to their own gig) however they prevailed. Walle and crew headed down the South path to begin collecting sap. The buckets were anywhere from 1/3 - 3/4 full which made for a good gather for the first day... their muscles are going to feel every bucket-full tomorrow! Bob took the first spill of the season, he admitted it so it must not have been too bad of a fall. He quickly retreated back to the camp to begin firing after the first sap came in. Don stayed to help lend a hand during this process. 

Otherwise, the group was quiet tonight until they returned to the camp. Melissa worked as the head chef for tonight's dinner; serving marinated lemon and herb chicken which, of course, hit the spot! Don also brought orange glaze cookies for dessert, yum. 

Melissa and Kelsey cleaned up dinner while the remainder of the crew began their typical banter. Topics of conversation tonight:
-NASCAR
-Mary's former racing days
-Is it an axe or a maul?
-Evan's GoPro
-Proper commands for a dog
-Where should we write this year's sap totals?
-What did the boys do between 1:30pm and 3:30 pm today???

The last topic of conversation was the result of a stressful 10-minute sprint. When the syrup was at 218 degrees and ready to pull off, Bob realized he set the pan up backward, meaning he would need to relocate his set up to the opposite side of the evaporator. This snafu lead into the realization the filters were not brought back to the camp. Evan rushed up to the house to bring the brand new filters back to the woods. Once he made it back to camp the group found they didn't have the proper buckets for pulling off syrup. The buckets were then retrieved...sans lids. This began the fourth trip back up to Jack & Marsha's for the lids. (Thank you, Marsha, for having these organized for us at the house!) Alas, the first bucket of syrup was pulled and labeled. For a few minutes, everyone was in a scene from Abbott and Costello, however, no syrup was damaged in the process and we think we know who's on first!

As of 11:07 pm Adam, Brad, and Bob are still boiling. When Evan and Kelsey left it appeared that Adam was in charge, though there was a "discussion" starting regarding the appropriate temperature of the fire. You'll hear more about that tomorrow. 

Sap Collected: 490 +18= 508 gallons
Syrup: Check back tomorrow, it's late!

(We will upload photos and videos to this blog tomorrow.)