April 1st, 2013

Well, the Easter weekend has come and gone and it was highly successful in terms of maple syrup production.  Boiling time over three days beginning Friday at 8 am and ending Sunday at 9 pm was 36 hours and netted 90 litres of syrup.  With sap coming in from the trees at 2% sugar the ratio of sap to syrup is 43:1 – under “laboratory” conditions –  so we went through 4000+  litres of sap.

A lot of friends come out to visit at this time of year and to share in both the labour and  festivity of this spring ritual.  It’s great to see everyone, and their efforts are definitely appreciated!!  A special thanks to my friend Dave who, for years, has been saying “pick me up on your way out to the bush”; and to Rod, dubbed Inspector 1 for his nearly full-time presence through this busy season.

Colder weather has returned and it doesn’t look like things will be favorable for another run until Thursday or so.  That would likely be our last effort as our student program ends this week, we have to get everything washed up and put away, and move on to other spring programs.

Here are a  couple of photos of life in the sugar bush as it played itself out this past weekend…

A maple came crashing down and became hung up up in another tree about 4:30 pm Saturday for no apparent reason!!

And dislodged itself and came down the rest of the way overnight…