Wednesday February 27, 2018

 We ventured out to get what we hoped would be 200 gallons of sap. What we found was 20 gallons of sap and 180 gallons of ice. The unamed person who predicted this run was being a bit optimistic.  Long story short, good crowd arrived to help (Bret, Melissa, Adam, Katie, Kelsey, Evan , Brad and later Bob). 

Most productive time was spent picking up buckets blown over by the wind last Sunday. 
It was more than just a bit blustery here last Sunday, the national weather service clocked 63 mph wind gusts in Findlay Ohio on Sunday afternoon. Fun fact they have a retrospective wind gust map, perhaps should not have been in woods during the 9 to 11 am hour according to the red color on the "gust map". There were some scattered power outages but nothing in our neighborhood that was prolonged. 

It was a nice walk on hump day.

Total Sap Today: 20 gallons + ice...still in the woods
Total Sap To Date: 1380 gallons
Total Syrup Today: ZERO
Total Syrup To Date: 29 gallons

February 24, 2019

VERY, VERY WINDY DAY! 

We laughed this afternoon that we made the decision to gather this am in the wind and that this was possibly the worst family decision since hiking in Yellowstone without bear spray! (It is almost always a bad idea to go into the woods on a windy day as dead limbs or even trees, fall with the shifting treetop canopy.) Having more luck than sense this turned out ok...(Brad would like to go on record as stating that he voted to stay inside this am)

Evan and Kelsey checked buckets at 0800 and thought there was more sap than there was late yesterday afternoon....so as the wind at that time was not too bad, Bob sent out a text to meet at 9 am. They saw a pair of owls on their morning walk today..we have heard but not seen them.

(Gerri told Adam about this while we were boiling this afternoon and he recanted that somebody found an owl pellet while tapping Friday evening...and while he was thrilled...was getting cold and noted that it was getting mighty dark as this little discovery was analyzed!) 

Somewhere between Bob's text and 9 am, the wind picked up tremendously. (The issue this am is that the wind will likely get worse today, likely freezing temps by nightfall that will remain for days..so we were afraid if we did not get the sap in now, we might night get it in at all...or til it had set for days. Sap sitting for a period of time does darken/diminish the quality of the syrup.)


We were not in the woods for more than 3 minutes when Kelsey started making time out signs (could not hear due to the noise of the wind and of course Wally). A falling tree got her full attention! (Frightening fact..... good size tree, not that far away, nobody saw or heard it but her!) At that point we regrouped and decided it was about as far back as forward on this path and the Cleveland family could be seen arriving X 4 so we marched on.



Brad loaded the chain saw before we left assuming this might be an adventure, he and Evan got the tree cleared, a large Ash near the soft maple grove that held us up only a couple of minutes. Wally was too full to go on without dumping from the South path alone so we phoned to Bob to help empty the tank as quickly as possible.

The middle of the woods was still creepy today, but better than the south by far. Watched a few limbs fall but nothing more than a shower of bark hit anyone. The tank was again pretty full and had to head back to the camp to dump while the rest worked ahead, most all of the buckets were 30-60% full so you could not walk too far without stopping. Curtis arrived in time to lift buckets into the tank with Brad...does not often take two people to do so but helped today! 

Was sleeting and snowing a bit as we finished. 735 gallons in about an hour and 45 minutes!! That is a pretty good clip for our operation. The temperature when we started was 51 and 36 when we finished and it felt like it! There are still some patches of ice in the woods. 


We enjoyed pancakes, sausage and bacon and eggs, and fruit for lunch. 

We all agree the syrup tastes much better today then yesterday! The camp smelled great today....the maple smell coupled with a grill full of bacon was a nice combo!

This turned out to be the biggest sap run since march 30, 2015 and we noted that this was more sap this weekend than all of last February! 

Pastor Nicole called to report the parsonage yard buckets were blown all over the place...she gave it her best go to replace them...was not thinking too positively about them staying put! Thanks for trying!

Thanks to all who helped today...we will figure out what your hazard pay will be !! Brad, Adam and Bob shut the boiler down about 10pm. A long day!

Sap Today: 735 plus 30 gallons
Sap To Date:1380 gallons
Syrup Today: 24 gallons
Syrup To Date: 29 gallons

Saturday Feb 23, 2019 

Opening day for the camp is a always a little stressful and full of extra jobs...today was no exception! Blessed to have lots of help today! Grateful when mother nature creates your first sap run on a weekend :)

The day started early for everyone as almost everybody had a commitment/activity/work this am. 

Gerri stayed home and got lunch around  (and turned the crock pot on for dinner) and dropped that off at the farm on her way out for the afternoon.

Kelsey and Evan got started about 11 am with odds and ends for the day. Evan finished making up some lids and Kelsey, with Muff's help, worked on cleaning out the milk tanks used to hold sap and scrubbing the evaporator. 

Brad, Evan and Kelsey took Wally to the house to rinse out the sap tank and bring water back to rinse out the entire camp system ....the boys say that Kelsey got stuck upside down in the sap tank ..and that this would not happen if she went to the gym a little more!

Anyway....Muff helped to clean up the camp this afternoon as well. Rob and Laura stopped in today (with their dogs who were happy to have an adventure!) and ended up working a good bit of the day as well.

 Kelsey , Rob and Laura finished tapping the last few trees and putting lids out and then finishing up the scrub on the evaporator pan. 

Evan, Brad, Adam and Katie formed the chainsaw/logging crew that cleared the downed trees. 

Meeting back at the camp, the weight lifting job for the day belonged to Evan, Brad, Adam and Rob as they moved the pans into place. (We lift the back pan up out of the sand when not in use). Brett and Molly arrived and finished wrenching the pipes back together (loosened them up to clean! )  and caulked the fire box. 

By 4:15 the gang above headed out to the woods to gather with the addition of Maddie B. , Erin, Curt and Tinleigh.......




and Bob remained at the camp waiting to hear if he would need to make a fire. Brad phoned back by the middle of the south path that this would be a run worthy of a fire. 

They eventually collected 600 gallons of sap...pretty good for a day with little to no sunshine and ....even though the thermometer hit the 40's, ......felt really chilly. 

Dale and Karen stopped in to see what was going on and perhaps see what Bob was up to..haha. The camp felt a bit damp tonight. We enjoyed supper and stayed rather close to the firebox tonight.

T and Gerri played their favorite "board" game....

Bob gave a brief inservice on the pumps and moving sap from one tank to the other....the only attendees at his lecture were Adam and Brad..hope they got it. 

Bob got his carharts in a crinkle tonight as he could not find his preferred stainless ladle. He was certain that this had been taken home to be deep cleaned when the camp was tidied up...something he frowns upon. Kelsey found it, pretty much right where it should be...so the kids called him Jack the rest of night. Even Jack has to admit........ that is funny. 

The conversation turned to the weather expected tomorrow ...very windy. Unsure how that will come into play...but at 9 pm the taps were dripping pretty steadily. 








First syrup off for the year!

Sap Today: 600 gallons
Sap To Date: 600 gallons
Syrup Today: 5 gallons
Syrup To Date: 5 gallons

Friday, Feb 22, 2019

Friday Feb 22, 2019

Tapped!!

Spent some time Thursday evening putting together some new lids and tubing. Still need to get about 25 more together yet.

Late afternoon, after school, we got 95% of the taps set. The weather was pretty nice today, not too windy, some partial sun and the high temp today was near 41.



Big shout out to the hero of the day Kevin Oney who brought drill bits to the woods. (Brad went to work  rather unexpectedly today with the drill bits in the truck!)

Word has it there is 6 gallons of sap in the parsonage yard  from the first few hours! 

 This is a nice site and sound when you first tap!!!

Big  project for a weekday! Lola looks like the rest of us feel. 

Monday Feb 18, 2019 (President's Day)


Trying to slowly but surely head in the direction of making some syrup this year! Word has it that two of the neighbors have their trees tapped already.  Taxes and cleaning up supplies just a few of the necessary evils that need taken care of first! New buckets arrived today as we were running low. We also need to get some new lids and tubing sets made up before the end of the week. The weather has been very erratic this winter, lots of extreme shifts in temperature. The woods is always a little tough to walk in, but perhaps more so than typical. We will not say who hit the deck today...but all is well. 

We often refer to Wally.. recall that this is the whimsical name by which we call  our track dumper that we use to drive through the woods. 

A small but mighty crew headed out into the woods around 1 pm on Monday afternoon to set out buckets and lids. The weather was perfect outside today! 

We had pretty "big snowflake" snow this am. Maddie B came to help out today as many are at work or school. 




 Maddie learned to drive Wally while Bob, Katie ad Kelsey walked the paths to set buckets and lids next to the trees we want to tap later this week

. Adam arrived a little later to help .....way TOO LATE in the girls opinions. The crew  walked to the west end of the woods ...an area that we have not previously tapped as they were off of the beaten path.  The thought is that there may be enough time this year to make this worth our while. Bob is thinking we will need to reroute to gather these on big days. 

Bob is very proud of his new buckets...they are red. He was fired as a member of the aesthetics committee, everybody else not feeling as warm and fuzzy about his choice. Bob was quick to point out that Adam "seemed to like them". 











Icicles on the new barn.

Ran into a road block on the north path today. This is at the curve in the north path, there were three tress that fell in domino effect into the path. Wally had to reroute around this . Looks like a very hollow old maple tree hit an ash tree and splintered another young maple on the top. This has happened in the last week. Problem for another day. 

Katie took over driving when Maddie left for practice. 

Everyone (dogs included) are whipped. Nearly all lids were sat out today and all prior to sunset.Now we need to figure out WHEN to tap trees. 


Note from yesteryear.......

On Sunday Susan shared with us finding Clarence Rine's syrup sales log. this log book lists the annual price of syrup per gallon and the number of gallons sold each year and began in 1946!