Hop Kiln Road 2020

[Russell Lampron]

I'm getting more syrup while handling and processing less sap.

Just the opposite for me! Processing more sap and getting less syrup. The sap per tap is up but the syrup per tap is down.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Oh boy, two nights of hard freeze, a clean syrup pan and now a couple inches of snow this afternoon! Tomorrow's high 51F. Oughta be a quick flow of good sap and perhaps a bump in the sugar. Took 5gal of quarts to our new town food pantry. Probably end up in somebody's crisis coffee instead of its true 19th century value: making nutritious indigenous foods highly palatable. In that spirit, we made baked beans yesterday and roasted a couple potatoes out of the cold cellar. Interesting times.

[Parker]

Thats awsome Bruce..i jugged 200 3.4 oz bottles for all the shut in yogies at the studio i got to. A little ray of sunshine ,,,share the abundance..

[Hop Kiln Road]

Ideal conditions but only pumped 300 gal first thing yesterday and another 200 gal last night. All 1.9%. The trees are finished. Not a record season but 30% above my average.

[Biz]

Ideal conditions but only pumped 300 gal first thing yesterday and another 200 gal last night. All 1.9%. The trees are finished. Not a record season but 30% above my average.

Congrats on your season Bruce! Hope my pump control systems helped in some part. My sap is still running here in central Mass but sugar content is very low. More sap, less syrup

Dave

[Russell Lampron]

I decided to call it a season too. More on that in my Red Roof Maples thread.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Yes, a perfect season here. Pretty sure pulling taps and washing tanks is essential work, solo anyway. Yes Biz, your controllers were a big help and worked flawlessly. The biggest glitches were power related. The unit with the 110v battery charger, the gfi tripped once and the charger tripped twice. Perhaps high moisture, but no idea really. On the solar unit, the charger couldn't keep up on the 2 and 3 day dwindling runs. I'll PM you about a solution.

[Hop Kiln Road]

The Tuft of Flowers
Robert Frost


I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a ‘wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

[Parker]

Looking forward to laying down phat hitches with you this summer Bruce...thiining your sugrwoods to make sweeter juice.

[DrTimPerkins]

The Tuft of Flowers
Robert Frost

Thank you.