Tuesday, March 16, 2021

What the heck?
This week was supposed to be sunny and warm. Nary a drop of sap flowed on Monday.

March 16, 2021 - Tuesday morning
27 degrees/cloudy skies/calm winds
Pentoga Road

Someone, somewhere, along the line told a fib. This week was supposed to be sunny and warm with nighttime temperatures dipping into the low twenties and daytime highs reaching near fifty.

With that in mind, I decided to eat a (as Mom would have called it) "stick to your ribs breakfast" of pancakes, bacon, and eggs, all smothered in maple syrup. After all, the day would be spent running around the woods gathering sap while keeping the evaporator boiling.


With a low of fourteen degrees, I knew it would be well into the afternoon before any sap began to drip from the spouts, plenty of time to make last minute preparations.

That never happened.

I was nearing home from my morning walk when a cold easterly wind began to blow and the clouds rolled in. Yesterday's high barely reached above the freezing mark.

Sargie and I made our sojourn to town hunting for canning jar lids. My bride had begun the process of bringing empty quart and pint jars from the basement and washing each, making them ready to fill with hot maple syrup.

With the absence of yesterday's flow, the jars are still sitting on the counter.


Several trips were made to the woods yesterday with disappointing results. Finally, by 4 PM, I accepted the fact that the sap wasn't going to run.

The GoPro camera was played with yesterday, the one that Sargie had given me for my last birthday. Fastened onto the bill of my cap, I made a test video of the maple woods and want to practice editing it today.


I hope to keep a daily video diary of next year's AT hike and am in the learning stage. Believe me, I have a LOT to learn.

In the random picture category, Eileen has been cleaning out her hard drive from an old computer and sent along a couple more pictures from Maine. From a former life, over thirty years ago, here's one of my marching band at the Eastern State Exposition in Massachusetts. I believe the year was 1991.


It appears I must have found a cowboy from whom to rob a hat. Gawd almighty, I look like an urban cowboy who ought to be selling ice cream bars and fudge cycles.


Yeah, well, back to Big Boy World...

I'm heading out the door pretty quickly for my morning stroll. Looking at the weather forecast, it's doubtful any sap will run today which means I'll be in the shop. There're several projects half finished, a giant bulldog I started months ago, Cheek's sign, a bowl, and a partridge in a pear tree.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...


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