Tuesday March 8, 2016

Day #14


You can tell everyone is tired. Muff contributes: Not much sap, 320 gallons, ants. everybody scattered, didn't get pictures. finished before dark. Brad, Dean, Muff, Adam , Katie and Bob collected.  Brad got started  early alone, he panicked a little as he started a fire after school and was getting a little low on sap so he headed into the woods to grab some quick.

 

At 9 pm there are 9 inches in the upper tank, Bob is a little unsure what to do. Filters are plugged with syrup but sap won't last. Might be done. Maybe not. Syrup considerably darker!

 

Total Sap today: 320 gallons

Total Sap to date: 3,712 gallons

Total syrup off tonight:11 gallons (3 from late last night)

Total syrup off to date: 63 gallons

Monday March 7, 2016

Day #13

Warm and windy and misty today. Busy day for all. Brad, Muff, Dean and Bob and Mr. B got started on the south path. Gathering went off without a hitch as nearly as can be discerned. Chuck and Sue and Katie rounded out the crew at some point. There were 27 gallons from sandhill rd and 520 gallons from the woods tonight. The sap is 1% sugar and after 3 hours of boiling none has been taken off. As of 9 pm there are 13 inches in the upper tank, it does not smell quite right, Bob is wondering if it is worth the wood to cook it tonight. However, it clearly will not last until tomorrow. Will tomorrow be the end?

Total sap today: 520 gallons + 27 gallons sandhill rd
Total sap to date: 3.392 gallons
Total Syrup to date: 52 gallons

Sunday March 6, 2016

Day #12

The weatherman sadly missed the mark today as we were promised a few hours of sunshine and much warmer than what materialized,...... gray, overcast and 34 degree afternoon with light wind. The sap has run a little the last couple of days and Bob wanted to get that processed to take the pressure off of the week as the warm spell is to start tomorrow...murphy's law!





Ice in the evaporator to start the day!







Brad checked buckets after church and split some wood. Adam, Gerri, Bob (his first trip into the woods to gather in a LONG time!), Brad, Muff, Dean, Dave and Gary gathered at a pretty good clip. Mr. Birch, back for more, dumped buckets on Wallie again allowing us to keep moving. Almost all buckets had some degree of ice in them today, we tried to get the sap and leave the ice behind to help preserve the sap tomorrow when it is supposed to be 60 some degrees out.

The picture shows the typical piece of frozen sap in each bucket, with the hole where the sap has been dripping in!

 

 

Bob started a fire as we discovered the valve was frozen shut on wallie. He made a make shift funnel out of an old clorox bottle and poured hot sap into the hose and several of us pulled this up in order for the hot sap to flush back into the valve, this actually worked on the first try (thankfully). Lesson for the day, park on an incline to empty Wallie completely.

Tomorrow night is 4-H, FFA and church council meeting and the first 60 degree day of the winter, so not much going to be going on tomorrow! In anticipation of sap running like a fawcett, Bob gave Adam some tips on being home alone tomorrow, including a Wallie driving lesson. Adam was quick to point out that he did not HIT anything (as others have). Mr. B was returned in one piece and reported that Adam did a fine job driving :)

Apparently it is all about the confidence.


Mr B about froze his hands off, he had to stay close to the fire for a bit to get the feeling back. Dale is now in sick bay, likely with Bob's plague (that seems to be still plagueing him). We did not really enjoy the pictures of Ted and Nancy in sunny arizona at spring training. Chuck went to a wrestling meet so he had the day off.

In a surprise corporate move, Bob has promoted Nicholas P. to Vice President of marketing. He thinks he has a  culinary appreciation for syrup and the personality fitzpah to get the job done right. Shout out to DUCK...please ask him about his rise on the sugarwood ladder when you see him!


Two Bob's and a Brad...........................

Sophisticated book keeping system.

Total sap today: 240 gallons
Total sap to date:  2,845 gallons
Total syrup today: 4.5 gallons
Total syrup to date: 52 gallons

Monday February 29, 2016

Day #11

Leap Day! Brad came home from school to check the woods, he thought there might be 300 gallons so he figured we should go get it. Bob sent out a text that this would happen asap.

Chuck showed up early to clean out the fire pit, he filled an entire wheel barrow that Brad soon emptied. He said this extra duty kept him from gathering the Sandhill forrest. Bob and Brad headed north through the woods soon joined by Muff. Adam caught up a little later and finally Dale and Karen. They found 280 gallons. Finished before dark. 

Chuck had to leave to assist Sue with a wardrobe snafu and quickly returned. They lit a fire and quickly boiled in tonight's haul and home by 9:10pm. Brad was off with James celebrating their love of moving furniture.

We had Aunt Dorothy's soup and Baldosser hot dog's for dinner--sent Brad to steal those yesterday! Nothing says Christianity like sending your kid into your neighbor's home to steal food on the way to church.

Bob is beginning to recover from the respiratory plague, no naps all day today, ....however just beginning to fight with the SAND in the syrup. There is a fine grit in the syrup--you can't see or taste this---but it plugs up filters quickly. 10 gallons completely plugged 2 new filters. This makes the final filter process really slow. We left 4 gallons in the filters last night as we ran out of patience...good thing as it was still sitting there tonight. Bob reheated the syrup and tried again with new filters.

Brad claims that tonight he saw 4 bald eagles about 15 yards of the edge of the yard at the farm. No video of this although he reports he tried!

Thanks to our helpers tonight!

Total sap today: 280 gallons
Total sap to date: 2,555 gallons
Total syrup today: 9.5 gallons
Total syrup to date: 47.5 gallons 

Sunday February 28, 2016

Day #10

Gorgeous sunny day! Bob checked buckets just prior to church and found several inches so he decided given that, and the wind forcast, to gather early today.

We left the camp about 1215 with Mr. B (back for more!)  up on bucket patrol on Wallie with Brad driving. Muff, Dean, Gerri, Adam, Mark, Susan and Julius. The buckets were a little fuller than yesterday. Kept one eye up in the air to watch for branches shaking loose in the wind. Pretty noisy today, hard to talk as we walked.

The sun peaked in the open roof.

George, Katherine , Nathan, Nicholas and Karaline joined us in the middle of the south path. The kids enjoyed the walk and were good help. Duck proudly attempted to tromp through each and every mud puddle. Bob said the missed photo of the day was him emptying the water out of his boots!

James showed up to help finish up. We gave Julius the grand tour of the camp and visited and ate. The camp felt like a nice sauna today. We had a total of 450 gallons with 20 from Sandhill Rd.

 
 

 
 

 

Bob said the evaporator ran through about 90 gallons per hour. The hose filling the back pan could not keep up at times so they hand carried in buckets of sap.

Bob attempted a brief nap, lasted about 5 min.

Total sap today: 450 gallons plus 20 gallons from Sandhill Rd
Total sap to date:  2275  gallons
Total syrup today: 8 gallons today
Ttoal Syrup to date: 41 gallons to date

Saturday February 27,2016

Day #9

Lovely day in the woods! Warmer and windy today! Bob is crawling out of quarantine....all but his voice and enthusiasm have returned.

One Word "Quote of the day" award goes to Adam:

Bob whispers  "I feel better but have no voice"
Adam responds dryly "Shucks" ...and then busts out laughing!

Bob and Lola left at noon to do CPR on the forklift, it needs a new set of points, but will run 20 minutes at a time, so for now...it is what it is.



He dug out some nice wood so Chuck was happy to have a better fire.

Dean commented how little ground eruption there was with the falling of the giant oak tree on thursday night. Bob inspected. It was VERY lightly rooted.







Lola enjoyed playing king of the mountain

Brad and Bob played with moving the carts around with a jack.

The wind is out of the south today, but crisp. We left the camp to gather about 510 pm with Adam, Katie, Nancy, Dale, Karen , Muff and Gerri. By the middle of the south path Mark and Susan came, (Mark came to get a brownie we think). We were graced by the presence of  Mr. Bob Birch tonight --hereafter referred to as Mr. B as do not want to confuse our Bob's. Anyway, with plenty of hands on deck to gather, we put Mr B on Wallie with Karen to dump buckets and Dale the daredevil driving. No accidents or spills noted! Well oiled machine. 1-2 inches in the buckets on the south, a little more as we headed to the northeast. 260 gallons found in all and we finished in the light of day! Found 2 buckets extra "full" likely missed as the last 2 paths through the woods ended in dark!!

Everyone glad to see the sun except Nancy who felt it could be a little warmer since returning recently from Florida.

Chuck and Bob started a fire, Chuck had to tidy up a bit as Bob moved things around in his work area and he doesn't do well with change. He seemed pleased enough that he had really good wood which kept the complaining to a minimum. Brad seemed to be the target of his harassment tonight (Sue is out of town, Brad's turn). He explained that wrestling would go better if he would do more of his share of splitting wood. Brad kinda smiled and ate all night. He looked like a glazed donut. Took Chuck's crap in stride. Goes over easier when you are exhausted and starving.

We enjoyed a lot of great food, over-ate, visited and enjoyed the steam bath.  Mark made awesome soup and Muff brought ham and potatoes that were enjoyed by all. Mark ate a brownie, possibly two and requested that Karen try to screw up another batch.

Dale got rowdy when he found out Bob gave Mr. B some syrup when he left. He pointed out this was crap as it was Mr. B's first day and his gazillionth day and he never gets anything given to him for helping. Then he went home. We expect him back tomorrow.

Bob returned to check the woods and found an inch of sap before he quit boiling tonight. He cleverly lit up a bucket for us to see the sap within.







Thanks everyone for your help!

Thanks for the great picture Katie!









Let the fire die out early so we had a little sap to get started tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Total Sap Today: 260 plus 5 gallons from Sandhill Rd.
Total Sap To Date: 1805
Total Syrup off Today: 8 gallons
Total Syrup off To Date: 33 gallons

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!

Tuesday February 23, 2016
Day #7

Bob sent out a text that he thought there was likely enough to gather ....but he is still in the sick bay...so he just threw an offer out there to whomever would bite on a cold walk. Dale, Dean, Adam, Katie, Muff, Gerri and eventually Brad gave it a try. We moved through the woods at a pretty good clip, the south path yielded 140 gallons so Dean and Dale dumped Wallie and joined the rest on the north path. It was really chilly on the north side of the woods again, Gerri only saw one wind tipped bucket tonight thankfully. Half way through the north path we picked up speed as dark was clearly gonna beat us through the woods. We got a little workout tonight as there ended up being about 380 gallons. We drained it into the lower tank and called it a day.We did miss Chuck's warm fire, but all were happy to head home to warmer territory. 31 degrees when we quit.



Brad has been bugging his parents about purchasing a light for the top of Wallie, he has a specific model in mind. He was quick to point out that the leg we break in the dark is going to be far more expensive than the $30 dollar light he has recommended! Adam, Brad and Dale explored the light situation on Wallie's front, apparently we were not using all the lights we had....we will know next time. At one point Gerri realized Katie had not been seen or heard from in a few minutes.....Adam did not seem real concerned and Brad thought it was ok as long as we came back with a majority of the people who left the camp.Feelin the love. 

We stopped to pose for a picture in front of Wallie before putting things away. Between the 7 of us, we figured out the generator, the extra lights, what to do with the gathering buckets , recorded the sap on the wall etc. We made a pact NOT to tell Bob a few details of our evening trek. This provided us with a few good laughs. The water fairy brought new bottles tonight. Appreciated by all but Dean who is part camel. As we pulled out of the drive at 7:10 pm, Bob was texting to see WHAT we were doing so long. He woke up long enough to interrogate Brad about all the details of the evening....life is about choices...he could have washed the dog and missed the Q & A.  


Tomorrow sounds like an interesting weather day.Be exciting to see what happens! The sap was very actively running as we gathered tonight !

Thanks to our hardy helpers!!

Total sap today: 380 gallons
Total sap to date: 1260 gallons
Total syrup today: Zip
Total syrup to date: 14 gallons

 This is a picture of Bob toasting a bun with his torch earlier in the week.

Monday February 22, 2016

Day #6

Chuck came over early this eve and got the fire box cleaned out, sized up some more wood, checked buckets and started a fire. He was a one man show. There was about 2-3 inches in some of the buckets , likely could have gathered but Chuck seemed busy with what he had to boil. Brad checked in after wrestling practice and Muff stopped in after work and appointments. Bob down with the plague.

Total Sap to Date: 880
Total Syrup Today: 6 gallons,
Total Syrup to Date: 15 gallons

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

Saturday February 20, 2016

Day # 4

Catchup on the week: Tues through Thursday evenings this week involved cold weather and little chance of anything running, ....nobody really took the time to look. Frying other fish. Bob spent most of his spare moments in the shop soldering the pinholes shut in the flu pan. He has had a chest cold and coughing made this a little trickier!! This task finished up about 1130pm Friday night. Muff and Gerri scraped out the top tank thursday evening with Lola's help. (camp and everything in it is way cleaner than usual.....postulating that the warmer winter kept the critters outside). There was not one nut (well edible nut) in the camp building. They managed to find 2 pick up trucks that would not start after their cleaning spree, and struggled a little with the whole "what do we do with the dirty dog thing", but survived.

Yesterday, Friday Feb. 19th, 2016, the weather took a sudden turn for the warmer and windier. If this winter in northern ohio seems to have been defined by anything.....it is wind. The wind howled during the night to the point it awoke you. The electric came on and off a few times, appears it was off on CR 34 for about 1.5 hours and some of neighbors to the south were out of power for about 3 hours .


Today began with quick cheerios and coffee followed by boots and a trip to the woods. Bob got wally pulled around back and with not much help from Gerri loaded the tank and put the brackets on (Evan did this last year, it was pointed out he was more help which Gerri is certain is true). We discovered that we did not remember to bring gathering buckets so Gerri ran home to get those.


There was a fresh fallen log across the path from the wind in the night, this involved the chain saw and a hitch from wallie to clear the path. Kaleb is wondering why he comes home from college to rest and has to get up at the crack of dawn and go to the neighbors to work...thanks Kaleb!

 It was still plenty windy this am, but not really prohibitive to being in the woods. Dean, The Oney family times four plus crazy bruce (who diminished the woods possum population by one during our morning walk--good work Bruce) , Muff, Bob , Dale, Gerri, Adam, Ted and yes SUSAN B (looking radiant before 9 am!) all arrived for our early morning walk. It was really nice out, everybody shed their coats by the end. There were many buckets laying down after the strong winds, but between 8 and 945 am we gathered about 600 gallons of sap. Given the number of hands on deck, Susan and Gerri scrubbed out the front pan with vinegar with supervision from Bob.

At 945 Bob took a handful of guys to the shop on 34 and moved the flu pan into the gmc and then gently into the camp. This project seemed a lot smoother than our last try at this, however we had more muscle this time.



Everyone scattered as promptly as they had arrived at 10am.  Bob and Gerri went to Sandusky to watch the Redmen compete in the sectional wrestling tournament. The team had a great day (they won the tournament!) and they bugged out at 520pm to head back to the woods. Bob sent out a text to gather at 530 and this was well under way by the time they arrived at 615 (the village really does not need us). The camp was full of sap so the crew did the south path getting about 80 gallons prior to darkness setting in. The moon did provide us with a little grace period tonight. We decided at 650pmish to just forget the rest as it was dark and not a tremendous amount in the buckets and we were not sure what we were going to do with the sap we had.

The first day is always a little "discombobulated" and today was no exception (the moon looks pretty full). Wallie had a small accident when a tree jumped out behind him, bob took this news amazingly well as he was already distracted by the fact that he could not find the float for the back pan...anywhere. We all looked , everywhere, aided by the fact that 85% of us had no idea what we were looking for! Bob concluded this was Cody or Brad's fault, but quick phone calls to them were not real helpful. It was eventually located clean and dry in the basement with other items that we would have been searching for in another 2 hours anyway.  Problem solved.


Chuck lit a fire after complaining that all of his equipment had not been provided, he complained pretty quietly for awhile as Bob was already "Lit Up" about his missing float. This is the day Sue has been waiting for....Chuck leaving the house. Sandhill Rd. provided about 15 gallons of sap today.


Two hours into boiling tonight , the pan appears to be holding sap ok. Cody's friends Dave and Justin stopped in for a surprise visit with their friend on their daylong tour of sugar camps (they are hard up for entertainment). Always a pleasure to see them! Thank you Ted for awesome taco soup and fixins....this was enjoyed by all.

Thanks to everybody who helped out today on our crazy schedule so we could be with Brad. Appreciate all of your enthusiasm and flexibility.

Total Sap: 600 am plus 80 pm; Sandhill Rd. 15 gallons
Total Syrup: not staying up late enough to find out!!

The view when we started gathering today.

 

The view when we ended gathering...for today.