WEATHER: The current pattern is this: About every 12 days a major snowstorm muffles the land, exciting much chatter, skier traffic, and plow truck sightings. In between storms there are a few sunny days, many drizzly 39-degree days, a few freezing nights, and many just-above-freezing nights. The battle between Sun and Frost drags on; it’s good sugaring weather. The third snowstorm is shaping up for later this week.
HOW’S IT RUNNING? Last week we got the second hard, multi-day run of the year. It was less intense than the run following the previous snowstorm. There have been a few stealth runs, too, when the sap runs hard on snowy 34-degree days before a quick freeze chokes off the run.
It’s late season. We can tell by how the yard in front of the sugarhouse has dried up. The earth exudes its aroma now. The red maples two miles down the road scream the color red. We don’t know when the buds on our hillside will pop, triggering an end to sap collection. This could happen before or after the coming snowstorm, depending on how warm it gets today and tomorrow.
BOILING STATUS: 22 days and counting. Some have been short, some long.
SAP SWEETNESS: It’s dropping which is typical of late season. Yesterday it read 1.7% sugar.
WHAT WAS THAT AGAIN?
Chief of Operations’s journal entry for Easter Sunday:
Early run was all slush fouling extractor pumps, all dry lines were running, when ice clogs in wet lines finally let go it almost overflowed transfer tank with 3″ overflow running full, transfer pump ran nonstop for 15 minutes. Nice sunny day with northerly wind still blowing. SS 1.7
MUSIC TO BOIL BY, Part 2
Sufjan Stevens – Chicago
Ween – Your Party
Heavy Quitters – Basically The Moon
Raye ft. 070 Shake – Escapism
Lxury – Do This Forever
Neil Young – Mr. Soul
Charlie Crockett – Black Sedan (Live From The Ryman)
Harry Belafonte – Banana Boat
Abby Webster – Tall Boy
Donovan – Season of the Witch
POETRY NOOK:
Here is a poem by Gary Snyder.
They’re Listening
As the crickets’ soft
autumn hum
is to us
so are we to the trees
as are they
to the rocks and the hills.
-GS
ATTENTION, READERS: We need to hear from you. If you sugar (Fleuette family?) do you have a moment of the season to share? Other readers, what are cherished signs of spring in your locale? Please write in the comment box. Did you discover a poem recently?
The Nebraska Knoll Blog 
feb 1 I have been watching the pussy willows’ soft buds push out about the time the most early turkey vultures appear circling in the thermals as well as the first chorus of frogs in the vernal pools in the prairies
now April 1. The pussy willows are leafed out, more turkey vultures in the sky, still frogs croaking but not as loudly
when I want to experience early spring again I walk at the edge of the streams by the ocean where the pussy willows are just beginning to appear
and then again next month when I climb Mary’s Peak and see once again the spring emerging
Willamette Valley , Oregon
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Hi Clairmonde, It’s so true, how we can revel in experiencing the pussy willows and so forth again and again. I like to follow the ephemeral wildflowers and unfolding ferns up the side of Mt. Mansfield. AC
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Hi Audrey!
It’s not a single moment, but walking lines in the Easter Sunday sun, with the palpable sense of the woods waking up around me was an absolute delight – and a deep reminder of why I chose this life. There’s nothing like a sunny spring day feeling the slow, unstoppable rhythm of the year and the life cycle of the trees that hovers just beyond our comprehension, but feels almost within reach.
Other than that, I suspect our season has been somewhat similar to yours. Last weeks run was another monster, though not on the limits of our ability to handle it. This several day stretch of old-fashioned sugaring has felt downright civilized, with the nightly freeze ups allowing me to have the RO put to bed by 10 and myself shortly after. The order of this season is starting to feel very backwards – the frantic, no sleep, stung out runs all came early, and the metronomic freezing night runs are coming once we’ve lost all sense of time (or sensibility). I’ve no complaints – the early warm definitely primed the pump for us and the late cool looks like it will help the season to hang on. Some of our door yard red maple buds are swelling slightly, and the popple across the driveway is definitely getting ready to go, but we tend to be a week or two behind you with the onset of color in the spring time.
In terms of production, we’ve had a very weak sap year. I’ve not yet seen my sap hydrometer read 2.0, and I didn’t even want to check yesterday (we were around 1.5 on Sunday….). The low sugar content has been well balanced by high volumes, and with the warmer sap these last couple days the RO has kept pace even with me asking more of it than I usually do. Yesterdays boil was our eleventh, and we wrapped up juuust shy of 5 lbs (if we’d processed the sap that came in from shut down to 11.30, we’d have made it past). Several friends around here have run out of wood, and it is very odd to be seeing all these late spring signs in early April, when we’re usually just ramping up.
Hoping you make it through the snow and get to collect more later in the week – we’re hoping to have an eclipse boil up here!
BSH
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Also! I forgot to mention, as I was out walking lines in a high corner of or woods on Easter (we call it the Farmhouse, as there is an old cellar hole and barn high drive, it’s a beautiful open stand of sugar maple with a view that can see to the White’s before the leaves are out) I heard something overhead, looked up, and felt like I was face to face with a Great Horned Owl, who I must have startled. It glided about 15 feet over my head, and looked back at me repeatedly as it silently slalomed through the trees.
BSH
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Hi Ben,
Your sentence that in part reads “feeling….the life cycle of the trees that hovers just beyond our comprehension, but feels almost within reach” resonates with me. Thank you.
And here in the kitchen there’s chatter about the vivid image of the owl who “looked back at me repeatedly as it silently slalomed through the trees.” Wow.
We’ll see if this snow storm revives the faltering season. Chops thinks we need a cold snap, and that’s not in the forecast.
AC
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Up in our cold and snowy hollow, we’ve definitely had a snap – sap stopped around 6.30 on Wednesday, and we’re just coming back up to 32. Not sure how much it’ll run today or tomorrow, but Sunday should provide a window into how tired the trees are – we’re forecast a 45 degree sunny day following a mid 20’s night. Also we’re looking out of our windows at 18-20” of full-bodied snow.
Our draw tank had the late season musty scent later in our Wednesday boil, and the sap wasn’t running as clear as it had been earlier in the week, but the syrup flavor was still fine. Late next week – mid 50’s rain – may put an end to our season, but for now I’m hopeful that we might have another good week on our hands – though we’re rapidly running out of floor space for barrels and I don’t see how we could get a truck in and out of here even if we were able to schedule a delivery. It’s admittedly a fortunate quandary to be in, and we’ll make the most of what the trees and the weather decide on, though we always have a bit of a wall to push through when friends and family are wrapped up and we’re still chugging along.
I hope that things stay somewhat sane there this weekend, listening and reading the news, with the possible high tide of visitors especially on your side of the state is a little alarming. A friend mentioned a local campground is charging $250/night for tent sites in the snow…….
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