Hop Kiln Road 2013

[Hop Kiln Road]

Banana Beach, New Hampshire 03304

Happy Valentines Day! Oh we're in for one treemendous, super sap season and I started it off right. Just took M to the beach for Valentines day and she loved it! I got the lawn chairs from the cellar and the huge brooder lamp she gave me for Christmas, and slipped on my speedo while she whipped up an extra large bucket of her famous Dirty Banana Daiquiris. I skimmed coated a little coppertone and put Mike Love and the Wilson brothers on the boombox and we just basked in the heat and knocked back about half the bucket. Then for my ole piece-de-resistance, my tour da la la force, my, my, oh, oh why I slid Endless Summer into the VCR. Aloha, did that clean out the pores. Just around the time the boys got their boards around to the 80 mile beach around the corner from Perth, and I was getting sweaty around the heat and feeling around of woozy, M was pouring around and must've noticed, cause she says, "Treat, isn't this around the time you hang ten around your own backyard?" Well, pow and bubbles, hit me like gnarly drilling: whoa dude, you can't be bumming around hot chickie beaches surfing your youth away! Forget the a priori weather people running us around in circles. Ten? That's my sign to hang five hundred! I'm in.

[red maples]

Thats awesome!!! Love it!!! Glad you had fun at the beach LOL!!!!

[Amber Gold]

Bruce in a speedo...

[Russell Lampron]

Way to go Bruce.

Good luck with the new season and RO.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Tapped out in carharrts and gaiters,
Sugary boys all fidgety as idle waiters

While deep snows pile higher and higher
Awaiting Nature’s cherished sweet flyer.

In woodsheds stowed full of neat ranks
Where even the wee wash their big tanks,

And buckets and buckets, and buckets galore,
Hung with Saint Nickolas pray, and then more:

Tubing arrayed in webs snug so tight
By old and young a snowshoe all night.

To the dark hillsides' whine with a sucker's hiss,
Headlamps twinkle and search a fitting amiss.

Long they march and toil late, frozen evenings
Gauging their new fangled electric squeezings;

Each steam dream hopes tis Felicity they snag,
Even lest risk one scorches a sisterly hag.

Woe, many nary draw a frosted glimpse hoary,
Let alone the sweet sought kiss of their quarry.

For down from the border she quietly wings,
The brightest light orb she so quickly brings.

Blink, aye, cause only a moment she tarries,
For it must be with all flighty fairies

And tis back north she so nymphfully scurries
While foolish forecasters still call cold flurries.

So sulks many a brave and hearty stoker forlorn
Fancy's hasty flight to the sound of her mother’s horn.

[Parker]

Very nice.

[Russell Lampron]

No runs yet but all the lines are streaming real pretty. Cold, snow, but the trees are pushing. Buckets aren't out yet. Got evaporator assembled and the water boil done tonight, couple little leaks, and the sugarhouse all cleaned. Feed tank is full and orchard tanks are gaining. Tested some sap at 2.8. Just got to assemble the RO, rinse the membranes and we're off...Got to be! Weather says spectacular season! No back up syrup pan, yet. Flat out with non maple stuff.

Same here! We just need some sun to get things flowing. It looks like we should get that from Sunday on.

[Amber Gold]

And there's the annual poem. Nice job.

[325abn]

Looks like its really going to start this weekend!! Hold on boys!!

[Russell Lampron]

How did you like boiling concentrated sap? I squeeze the crap out of mine because I like the large and constant draw offs.

Them boiling sodas taste pretty good after a shot of hot syrup. Or is it the other way around!

Same here with the forecast! The only thing I don't like is the lack of sun until Thursday.