April 21, 2014 – Monday

33 degrees/cloudy/calm

Pentoga Road

Sunday can be summed up in two words; boil sap.

I didn’t think it got cold enough Saturday night to make the sap run on Sunday. Boy, was I wrong. After writing yesterday, I started down the road on my walk and made the mistake of stopping long enough to look at a few hanging sap bags. They were full. And so the day began.

After gathering, I started the boiler and the process began. All four barrels, plus the four gathering buckets, were full.

The times when I wasn’t feeding the fire or adding sap to the pans on Sunday was spent grading final projects. All are due on Wednesday and I finally got caught up last night around 9 PM. There will undoubtedly be many last minute projects coming in during the next three days.

Sargie took advantage of the 65-degree weather and hung out the laundry. The sheets smelled and felt great last night. It’s one of my favorite sensations, sleeping  between sheets dried outside on the line.

Sargie wasn't going to let a little bit of snow stop her from hanging clothes out on the line

Neighbor Mike and Paul came over to visit. Paul decided he wanted to gather the afternoon sap and when I rose to help him, he insisted he do it alone. Dr. Paul’s been doing his internship all year and enjoys a good excuse to stroll in the woods. He and Brutus departed with buckets in hand while Mike and I sat like two old men feeding the fire.

Sargie made a huge batch of great spaghetti for dinner along with garlic bread and I was about to bust before finishing. I certainly didn’t hop on the scales last night before going to bed.

Sunday evening was spent watching Brutus splash through Lake Pentoga playing fetch. He later spent some time chasing ducks who mistakenly thought they might overnight on the water.

It was almost 9 PM before I shut the boiler down last night. I’ll skip walking this morning to start the fire and hopefully, I’ll begin to process syrup sometime this afternoon. Mike wants to learn how to do it and even made mention yesterday that though I’ll be gone next year hiking the Appalachian Trail, he’d like to go ahead and tap trees to put up syrup. My response? Heck yeah!

Brutus is watching from outside the garden perimeter; about the only place he's not allowed. 

Sargie’s working today and I’m about to head out the door.

After all, a man’s work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road…

An apple tree that made it through the winter in good shape