Welcome back, Maple Trout Lilli! Let’s see what maple innovations emerge this year from her cheery kitchen at the top of sixteen stone steps. She writes: When I woke this morning it was 11 degrees and sunny. While I waited for the temps to rise I decided today was the day for the first… Read More
Leap Day Update
WEATHER WHIPLASH is the colloquial term for wild swings in temperature. Take the past few days for example. Yesterday’s high was near 50 degrees F. and by this morning the thermometer read 10 degrees. Tree limbs felled by last night’s wind litter the skiff of new snow. By Sunday we’ll forget it was ever cold.… Read More
The Agony of a Buried Main Line
Chief of Operations writes: We always try to set time aside in late October/early November to do tubing maintenance before the first significant snowfall. It is so much easier to repair animal chews, uncover the lines from blowdowns, and lift them off the ground when the forest floor is bare. This year was particularly problematic… Read More
The Tapping Gambit
Chief of Operations writes: “How do you know when to start tapping?” they ask. If they only knew that I don’t know, but I do it anyway. It was so easy back in the day. The accepted wisdom was that if you were finished tapping by town meeting day (the first Tuesday in March), you… Read More
Ready or not, here it comes
Lots can – and did – happen in a week: The start of tree-tapping, a February thaw, the scrubbing of sap tanks, continued tapping, a sap run, setup of pans and equipment, and ongoing tapping. Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. February 5th, First Day of Tapping “Gear explosion,”… Read More
It’s Over
The Letdown Alone in the evaporator room at 5pm – the green hose snaked across the cement floor that cools her feet, a dish rag draped over the counter, the rag laden with six screw-and-nut ensembles resembling barbells, four more nuts in a line, and two rows of four washers each, the woodshed doors both… Read More
Early April Woods Report
Crew member Larry Lackey writes: On the woods crew’s agenda for early April has been to check for and repair leaks in the sap collection lines. This was the third time around for most sections of the bush. The problem is not sap leaking out, but rather air leaking in to the tubes, reducing the vacuum… Read More
The Post-it Wall
WEATHER: “Oh dear, what do I say about the weather?” asks the Blog Editor of Chief of Operations as he fills the wood stove and lights a fire for the evening. “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,” he replies. “Isn’t that a Mark Twain saying? Or was there a different… Read More
A Spring Chicken
Yesterday felt like spring. Master Boiler Christian discarded his hat and hoodie and worked in a T-shirt. Flies swirled around the syrup jugs on the picnic table. The entire sugarhouse took on a new smell, and for the first time the grade dropped from Fancy/Golden to Amber the color of the glaze on Maple Trout… Read More
March Snows to a Close
WEATHER: Today read like the final, summarizing paragraph of a March weather essay; the theme was “See how erratic the battle between sun and frost can be.” The day began with a frosty temp of 20 degrees. Morning sun quickly dispelled the chill…then clouds dampened the mood…then it snowed hard and is still snowing…then by… Read More
The Nebraska Knoll Blog 