Maple Lessons

It's been a banner year for syrup. 

Unfortunately.

If you remember our plan was to use this cute little number, that came as a package deal with the old farmhouse, to boil our sap with. I received lots of comments on just how pretty she is, and when I think about it, I have to agree. It wasn't lost on me, that perhaps this was too delicate an item to banish to a sugar shack. And apparently, she thought so too, because she refuses to bring anything near a boiling point, no matter how sorely she's tested. She's too well insulated for such tomfoolery but can you really blame her? Now I need to find a place to put her inside. Three wood stoves, am I crazy?

 

There was no way that the process was returning to the kitchen. So we had to get creative, again.

It's not the same as a wood fire, by any means, but it's getting the job done, for this year. And the Artist is now officially on the look out for a cheap, old cook stove to become the main fixture of the future sugar shack.

And if that wasn't enough to keep us hopping, the weather round these parts has been a fickle friend. We had a week of freezing weather, and the taps came to a stand still.

Then last week, perfect sap weather returned. By Thursday evening, the male twin and I were so busy running around emptying buckets two or three times a day, we forgot all about how sweet that icicle just might taste.

Or it might have been the fact that if we paused for too long, someone would nip us in the ankles. I had no idea I looked like a...sheep? I think she needs glasses.

Before we knew it, we had started to fill our second rain barrel and the Artist and I took shifts all night to keep the sap fires burning. And in case you're not sure what that means, I'll spell it out for you. We took turns getting up every two hours, heading outside and topping up the sap before it burns, going back to bed, and waking up every 10 minutes after that, afraid that we had overslept the alarm. The best part is, we'll probably do it again this weekend. Unless of course, you'd like to get in on the action? While we've pulled the spigots from the trees, we still have a lot of sap to boil down, and the clock is ticking; as the weather warms up it will begin to spoil.

 But the end result is always worth the effort.

I'm linking up with Farm Friend Friday and Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop

~Happy Friday Friends!~