Hop Kiln Road 2019

[Hop Kiln Road]

Another Love Song

I keep a close watch on these taps of mine
I keep my tanks wide open all the time
I dig the snow for the limbs that bind
Because maple runs, I walk the line

I find it very, very easy to be true
I find myself alone when each boil's through
Yes, I'll admit that I've fallen for you
Because you're mine, I walk the line

Running all night until day is light
Dripping on my mind both day and night
And happiness I've known proves me right
Because maple runs, I walk the line

Your golden flow keeps me on your side
Gives me cause for the love I can't hide
When the sap flows higher than the tide
Because you're mine, I walk the line

I keep a close watch on these taps of mine
I keep my tanks wide open all the time
I dig the snow for the limbs that bind
Because maple runs, I walk the line

[Russell Lampron]

Okay now I've got that Johnny Cash song in my head. Thanks Bruce!

It's good to hear from you buddy. I hope that you have a good season to make up for last year.

[BAP]

Nice poem Bruce. Hope you have a great season.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Too cold to drill too much but I got two orchards dialed in and all the tanks set too. Couldn't help but note a couple of Traders ain't setting their chocks before they tapped in on this lateral. M always chocks me though she probably oughta let my stone roll around a bit more to shed all this dang moss then I might be able to puzzle out all this auspicious Vermont talk about early tapping cause the sap and labor is free or fancy and expensive gear gets a lot more sap with less sugar in case the bulk price goes down business.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Got 270 of 700 tapped in 3 days so I'm going to beat the weather. Spent 2018 parked and chocked after having a couple defective parts replaced with aftermarket gear. Luckily plucky Dr. Voyeur decided to peek in under the hood for a look see when he did! Stopped me for 90 minutes - an existential am I me experience - while he got in a tangle so now I've got more mileage than the odometer reads! Wait until ole DMV tries to explain that on my title. A couple days later when I got back in touch, Dr. V asked me about all that old bondo he had to cut through. Oh my goodness, yeah...1971...Pamplona...break my heart Margarita Femenino...ouch... He nodded. Gored while in gear. Explain why only the bovine parts would fit now.

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

LOL love reading the stories!!
Have a great season.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Good time in the wind yesterday, now 415 of 700 taps. Okay get the Traders back up to speed. Lost Ace, and I was just getting him broken in right too, to Miss Evangeline's niece, ahem, Thirsty. I hope her name is actually Theresa but I have never met her mother to find out. Anyway, he sent me a pic in January - while I was freezing my pinkies moving the Wordsworth tank - two of them on a real Nice hot beach wearing those gilets jaunes thingees and not much else. But M had contacted my buddy Chatworth in the Knights of St John over to Valletta, one of my favorite spots, while I was still chocked and he dispatched young Sir K. Nice kid and he carries a lot of weight in the Order too. We tubed the new (to me) Legere orchard with 3/16 and .225s in January. Three lines of 20 taps with 600' tails across a cutover neighboring property dropping 100' right to a town hammerhead for an easy pickup. Found the remnants of the old sugarhouse on a bluff high above the Merrimack. Average tree diameter 18". And yes, I know, it could be 120 taps but I put in 60 with anything over 36" did get a 2nd tap. Must have been a real sight 100 years ago.

[Hop Kiln Road]

505 of 700. Wordsworth Brook is a beautiful little stream draw with tall sugars, but, running away from the road. Tubed it in 3/16 and .225's three years ago and it produces 20gpt no problem. At the top, ran the tube through the town culvert and picked up the fence line along the opposite side of the road. Have tried two different systems to pump the sap up to the road, 450' with a 60' rise. Both worked; neither were satisfactory. Well Sir K grabs his battle axe and starts flaying his way downstream toward the pond behind Miss Evangeline's sister's stables. Clears a 1100' swath but with a <2% grade. Wired a 3/4 pipe. I'm very doubtful. But cheery Sir K says not to worry cause for Plan B he has some sort of sure-to-flow plan. Yeah, youngsters, always think they're going to tilt the earth.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Okay, we were down behind the stables trying to uncoil frozen pipe, pretty breezy off the pond too, and so to stay warm I was pestering young Sir K why he was so confident he could get his low slope sure-to-flow Plan B to work. Well he stops his steed in the middle of the woods and takes out - wait, hold on, I know it's cold and somebody forgot to put the blanket against the threshold, but I want my Vermont friends to stop rocking right here, take a deep breath and slice off their next slab of aged cheddar before they read this cause I don't want to be responsible if them Memphremagog ICE people can't take their thumb prints - Sir K takes this little tiny dinky phone out of his hip pocket, no party line, no operator, no dialing, no quarters, no nothing - and calls up Maple Trader, The Forum, like us right now! Cept from the middle of nowhere, well, not exactly, knew I was down over the bank where Miss Evangeline's sister pushes all the lipizzaner manure with her Korean tractor. But still. Dang. Don't that bust up a couple of them cracker barrels.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Felicity Where Art Thou?

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.

Woodsheds stowed full in 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 spidered 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 fittings amiss.

Long they shoe and frozen evenings they toil,
Before torching the stick wood for a roaring boil

Til old timers doze with rhythmic wheezings
To the hum of 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 sought sweet kiss of their quarry.

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

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

And tis due 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.