WEATHER: Looking back, it’s rather a blur. The sunny, mild stretch triggered a weekend sap run, then the mercury dipped enough to freeze the hoses running from here to there. Yesterday not much thawed out since the temp hovered just above freezing. Today is different; at noon it is nearly 50… Read More
To the Falkland Islands
Unbidden Every April the thought comes at me unbidden It’s Falkland Islands week something in the air the bareness of the trees the close grasses, not yet sprung the open pause between sugar season and summer canopy. This year I entered the Falklands the day before the last boil walking up the valley, near the Hale… Read More
Mallards and Maples
As mentioned in previous years on this blog, sugar season is not over until the fat lady sings. This aria is what I heard her sing on Friday: I recalled I had first learned of this song from a book by E.B. White called The Trumpet of the Swan which is about a trumpeter swan named Louis… Read More
Still, Still Going
Quote of the Day: “This has got to be the first sugar season where the lawn needs mowing before the last boil.” Mud season is over, people are bicycling, the pussy willows are out, and still we’re making nice-quality syrup. Stairway to heaven. Speaking of climbing, this post is for Christian and Carly… Read More
Sap Run 101
Or, Are The Trees Just Over It? Chief of Operations writes: I really shouldn’t be trying to instruct this course, as after forty years of trying to predict the strength of sap runs, I am still only vaguely successful. April 12/16 This week the weather seems so perfect for sap runs. Why, then, is their… Read More
Still Going
WEATHER: April in February, February in April. A good cold snap recharges the maples. It’s the weather we need to keep the season going. HOW’S IT RUNNING? It was too cold for most of the week, but the sap ran Thursday and Friday, though not as hard as it would have earlier in the season with… Read More
Breathless
If sugar season and the blog were running a road race, sugar season would have lapped the blog twice by now and the blog might consider dropping out. The week has felt like a 500-page novel. The setting is 2016 at Nebraska Knoll of course; the main characters are the weather and the maple trees, developed with… Read More
Cherish the Pancake
I get quite a few phone calls on Saturday mornings from grandfathers who are flipping pancakes for their grandchildren and notice that the jug of syrup is just about empty and won’t get them through another weekend. Quite regularly, local fathers drive up to the sugarhouse between 8 and 9am on Saturday mornings because they… Read More
Eureka
SYNCHRONICITY: “The simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.” SYNCHRONICITY: Easter Sunday, full sun, and a classic sap run at last. Chief of Operations writes: Heaven Sent It was a rough morning Thursday in the sugarhouse as I found myself once again being hammered by an incessant… Read More
Animals as Leaders, Animals as Chewers
HILL REPORT: Crew member Ross writes: Well, it only took seven weeks, thirteen boils, and numerous trips into the woods to get the lines in ship-shape and the vacuum to the optimal 26.5 in Hg. Even now we will find animal chew or fallen branches that have pulled taps, so the work goes on. Amazing, given… Read More
The Nebraska Knoll Blog 