Coming to you live from the sugarhouse, the Nebraska Knoll crew presents “The Night of the Leap Year Boil.” Sitting to my right is Christian Wayne, no, wait, he is not sitting, he has moved away from the camera to pick up an overflowing pail of hot water by the evaporator.
“I don’t know why the syrup keeps surging,” says Becca, who just picked up a pail of hot syrup and dumped it into a tub where CW now stands stirring with a wooden dowel. In the time it took to type that sentence, B drew off another pail of syrup and dumped it. As you may notice, we are making syrup in real time.
“Are you blogging or are you looking at last evening’s Oscars gowns?” says B as she swivels away from the front pan. She changed out of her blue sequined gown into jeans and a dull purple T-shirt pulled over a red long-sleeved T-shirt. Hats win fashion points here far more than chokers and diamonds, so she chose a baby-blue knitted cap especially for this evening’s boil, the first-ever Leap Year Boil.
“Joe, time for a stoke!” states B, who as the boiler needs a steady fire. Joe, who is in eighth grade, says he got criticized by a teacher for pronouncing “Vermont” without the “T.”
“That’s ridiculous,” cries the live blogger, “only out-of-staters enunciate the “T.”
In fact, B and CW are natives of New Hampshire. Says B, “In New Hampshire they don’t call it ‘sugaring,’ they just call it ‘making maple syrup.'”
“Are you sure?” asks someone.
“Why is it surging?” asks B as Chief of Operations enters from the RO room.
“Are you plugging off the finish trough right after a draw?” he offers. He circles the arch and leaves to check the vacuum pump room.
As this topic has no resolution within the confines of live blogging, so it shall be put to rest for the remaining five minutes of February 29th.
The Nebraska Knoll Blog 