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| The sap ran hard on Friday |
April 19, 2014 – Saturday
26 degrees/clear/calm
Pentoga Road
I remember way back when, oh, thirty-six hours or so, when
it was wintertime. Just like that, we’re back into the promise of warmer months
ahead.
Friday dawned cloudy, damp, and chilly, but by morning’s
end, the sun was shining and the temperature was rapidly climbing.
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| It took some digging, but I found the buried barrel filled with sap. I lifted out a large chunk of fresh water ice. It will be that much less boiling I'll have to do when I process the sap into syrup. |
I set out to gather sap after arriving home from my morning
walk. The sap in the bags had mostly frozen and it took no small amount of
bare-handed work to remove the triangular cubes. I don’t mind as fresh water
freezes long before sugar water. In other words, the water that remained thawed
had a heavy concentration of sugar and takes much less boiling to process it
into syrup.
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| The ice inside the bag is made up of fresh water and will be discarded. |
The majority of the rest of the day was spent trying to break
the bead on an ATV tire. I’m trying to eek one more year out of a set of very
worn, extremely weather-checked tires on the blue four-wheeler. I put a tube in
one last year that worked unbelievably well; so good in fact that I decided to
do the same with the other three. It took all of five minutes to break the tire
down last summer and within half an hour, I was back to riding.
That wasn’t the case yesterday. I tried riding up on the tire
with the car, using the frontend loader, breaking it with the car and board,
using a jack in all manners. Yooper Brother Mark stopped out later in the
afternoon and we tried several methods. Nothing could free the tire from the
rim.
In the end, I made the executive decision that I’ll take the
tires to town this coming week and use a tire changer in Mark’s plant to break
the beads, then come back home and change the tubes.
It was a beautiful day and after quitting, Mark and I sat in
the sun and talked.
I had to collect sap again late yesterday afternoon
resulting in forty gallons from sixty-five taps for a daily total. That’s
pretty good running in anyone’s maple book. I should be boiling early this next
week.
Sargie traded days and has today and tomorrow off. We’ll
head over to the Mighty Milligan Easter gathering late this morning. It’s held on
Saturday for a variety of reasons; so those traveling can be home for Easter, a
school day on Monday, etc. I need
to collect sap just before we leave and I asked Sargie if we could be home well
before dark this evening so I can collect tonight. The bags will be full.
I received confirmation of my hiking reservations for the
Pictured Rocks Trail along Lake Superior the 8th through the 10th
of August. This will be my dry run for the Appalachian Trail. Currently, I’m
working on a tent/tarp system with a bug net… making my own. I like the
hammocks I have, but I’m hoping to reduce the weight in my pack to around 10 to
12 pounds, not including my food and water. With a repaired knee and an aging
body, I want to put the odds in my favor as much as possible.
Assignments continue to pour in and I look for a deluge this
weekend. All are due on the 23rd and some have waited until the last
minute. I know what I’ll be doing at the beginning of this next week.
I’m going to finish up, take my walk, come home and
collect sap, grab a shower, all before Sargie and I head to the Milligan Easter
dinner.
After all, a man’s work is never done.
So are the tales from Pentoga Road…
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