Finally

After last year’s hiatus, we’re back into sugaring. It’s a whole lot of work, but it’s also very rewarding and I love doing it. I love that everyone around us is involved in it somehow, it’s got a community wide feeling to it.

The contemplative boil coupled with the smell are the parts I was missing the most.

When we wind down the operation, I don’t need to feed the fire every 5 minutes. The fire bricks keep plenty of heat to keep evaporating several gallons for an hour or 2, so I keep an eye on things remotely.

When we draw syrup, I don’t take pictures. There’s too much going on and it gets very sticky. Between the bucket collection, the boiling, the draws, the cleanups, moving wood, it’s really a lot of work. We were insane to do it outside through the night and moving sap by hand a few years back. I have a distinct memory of being outside by myself at 2AM, seeing light in my warm house from a distance, hearing coyotes come down the hill, and really wondering what the fuck I was doing there. And I would always worry that a bear would knock down the pan to get in the syrup. I’m glad I don’t have to do this anymore, but I’m also glad I did it.

I’m bubbling with ideas for things I want to improve in the operation.

Buckets are Up

We upgraded the buckets significantly this year. The metal buckets were old, second hand, and I hear some old metal buckets might use a lead based solder. I don’t know if those do but the noxious idea is enough, they’re out. Maybe we’ll keep a few that look newer and in good shape. So microplastics it is! We tried aluminum buckets and they aren’t practical at all, but the few plastic ones we had worked well. Esther & I went to hang 50 of them in our usual tapping spots. Robin wasn’t able to hike this treacherous terrain with crutches, and he was very much bummed to miss out on the tapping action. It’s a big deal here.

The cat came with us, she too can tell Spring is around the corner.

Scrub scrub

Cleaning up everything to get ready for 2024’s sugaring season, which seems to be a bit later than the mid-february start we’ve gotten used to.

Flue scrub

Tank scrub