I was bragging last week when we had 50+ degrees and a gorgeous sunny day for our first open house of the season. No more bragging for me (well, at least for today, anyways.)
Today was a miserable day. After running all over town with Joe yesterday to fix a broken sap pump, we awoke this morning to a power outage. The wind was howling, so I assume the lines were down somewhere in town. No power means no maple candy or cream (need the stove to do that), no reverse osmosis machine (which we use to take off excess water), and no evaporator (it’s oil fired and needs juice to run).
We were dead in the water.
Plus, if we didn’t get that 1,300 gallons of sap boiling soon, it would spoil. Once you make maple syrup, it lasts a good long time. But in the sap stage it spoils rather quickly.
All in all, not a good way to greet the day. So we did what anybody would do when the situation is dire. We went for coffee.
Luckily, by the time we returned, power was back on and we were in business. The healing power of caffeine is amazing.
Although the power was on, the public stayed away today. Can’t say as I blame you. It was nasty weather. We did have a few hearty souls come by and say hi–including some other sugar makers in the area. You can meet them on the video below.
I hope that next week will bring us better weather–and more sap. We’re behind on production. This week’s weather seemed ideal for sap, but it just wasn’t flowing at the rate we expected. And the other sugar makers said the same thing. Well, nature is fickle.
I’ll keep you posted on what happens this week….
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2JaCUb78bc&hl=en&fs=1]