I just finished an 8-day stretch in the sugarbush gathering sap and/or running the evaporator on these days. The sap has not run to speak of since last Friday; daytime high temperatures have approached 60 degrees. It has not frozen for several nights. I am quite certain the season is over--over except for the clean-up. There are no freezing overnight low temperatures in the forecast, so I don't expect sap flows to be recharged. The red maple are in full bud. I suspect that the brother species will follow as soon as the snow pack is gone.

I plan to wait until later this week to pull spiles and gather up the bags and bagholders. There is still a lot of heavy wet snow in the woods. With a few more days of warm weather and possibly some rain, much of that snow may be gone so this part of the clean up will be less of a chore. We are not yet driving to the sugarbush, which means everything is still being packed or sledded in or out. That includes the water needed for clean-up.

Today we finished and bottled 23 gallons of syrup, which brings our season total to 68 and 1/4 gallons. That exceeds our previous season record total of 66 gallons. There is a need to footnote the record. The new record was achieved with 200 taps; the previous record was obtained with 175 taps.

Yes, the woodpile will also need to be replenished.

It is the 23rd of April, and this is the scene this morning in the sugarbush. Yes, the sap did run today. I spent an 11 hour day evaporating half of the sap collected yesterday. (I would have gotten an earlier start, but my driveway needed to be attended to due to last night's 8 inch snowfall.) I will be back at it tomorrow to finish the remaining sap and be ready to tackle today's and tomorrow's runs on Thursday. That is the plan.

Since my last syrup season update, the weather has posed the most significant challenge. In the past ten days, we have received three spring snowstorms, the latest gifted us with 18 inches of heavy wet snow. On top of that, it rained late yesterday. This morning the weatherman predicted 4 to 6 inches of snow to arrive this evening and overnight.

I find that shovelling out the entrances to the building, the bulk tanks, and the woodpile is one of the first chores to be tackled upon hiking out to the sugarhouse. Dealing with this much snow this late in April has to be a first in the 10 plus years that we have been involved in this venture. I am sure there have been years when the head of the field and the road into the sugarhouse were free of snow and dry enough that we were driving to the sugarhouse at this time. Being able to haul stuff out and in, rather than carrying stuff out and in, is greatly appreciated this far into the season, when all the tasks involved begin to wear on one.

I hiked out yesterday to check on things and to pack up the syrup that was finished and packed on Thursday. We finished 21 1/2 gallons of syrup on Thursday, which brings our yearly total to date to 45 1/4 gallons. There was some 24 to 30 inches of heavy wet snow in the woods. It is of a consistency that snowshoes don't provide much, if any advantage. I spent a couple of hours shovelling out and straightening up inside the sugarhouse, in preparation for the upcoming week.

There was some sap flow yesterday, but, as so typical this year, it was very inconsistent. Some trees had produced almost half a bag--approaching 2 gallons; others appeared to not have produced any at all since our last collection on Thursday, the 16th. We will be gathering sap later today. I am not looking forward to that chore and the effort that it will take because of the snow conditions. It will be better to tackle that task today rather than to wait until after tonight's additional snowfall. The forecast for the week would seem to support the notion that there will be syrup making for at least the next several days. I am looking forward to the warm temperatures and the absence of snow in the forecast for late in the week. I trust these conditions will make our getting around a whole lot easier. I am sure we won't be driving, but only walking a whole lot easier.

The syrup season continues. Sap flows have been modest with daily collections--on those days when the sap ran at all--ranging from 100 to 150 gallons. The sugar content seems to be quite high with a sap to syrup ration of 30 to 1 based on our somewhat rough estimates of the volume of sap. The usual ratio cited in the business is 40 to 1. Ratios of 25 to 1 are not unheard of. The number that really counts is the volume of finished syrup. We now have 18 gallons packaged and ready to go. There is another 5 gallons ready to be finished and bottled. That task will be tackled later today. Hopefully, last night's low temperature was enough to restart a sap flow; I fully expect to be collecting sap late this afternoon. The final task scheduled for today is to split wood. We split the wood as we put it up so that it cures more readily. Based on our observations as we operate the evaporator and the on-line postings of other syrup producers, I am convinced that splitting the wood even smaller makes for a hotter fire and more efficient operation of the evaporator. That explains the second round of splitting. My goal is to split the well seasoned wood into pieces that are about the size of my wrist. I enjoy the effort involved in and the results of splitting wood. It is one of those skills, that I want to keep honed--just in case.

It is time for a syrup season and pack basket update. The pack basket is working better than the syrup making.

Cold daytime temperatures returned late last week and have hung around through the weekend. Tomorrow may be the first day in five that the daytime high temperatures reach the upper 30's. We ran the evaporator twice last week--Friday and Saturday. The small amounts of sap that have flowed since last Friday have now frozen in the bags, so it will take a real moderation in temperatures to thaw that sap let alone get the flow started once again. All in all, it means a slower and a delayed start to the season. We can remain optimistic about the prospects for the season as long as the conditions remain seasonal, that is, spring-like. It will be a brief and unproductive season, if spring quickly becomes summer-like.

The pack basket, on the other hand, is not temperature related; it is task related. It has performed very well. A three-gallon water can fits easily in the pack, which means that I can pack that amount of water out to the sugarhouse on a daily basis. The six-gallon water can, that I have, won't fit in the pack; it gets packed out on the sled, when needed. Even with the water can, there is ample room in the pack basket for lunch, extra clothing, and tools.

Here is a picture of my newest camp tool. I have no idea what material has been used in its construction, other than it must be a man-made material--at least I think that it is. It appears and feels to be as indestructible as advertised. I haven't attempted to replicate the test posted in an on-line video where a pick-up truck runs over the basket. A second test included in the video has one person wearing the pack and a second person standing in it. I guess if one tells those Maine boys that something is indestructible, one best understand that the claim will be tested. That is probably good advice to keep in mind should one find him/herself in a tavern in Maine and be inclined to brag about how many pickled boiled eggs one can consume in one sitting.  For my 3-R readers (Reduce, Reuse, Recyle), pickling boiled eggs is a cool way to reuse pickled beet juice.

It is time to close this post. I have degraded myself to the point of writing about bar food.