The Trees Know

We had such a warm up last week and made it to 60 degrees one day. The maple trees were sluggish in the warm weather only making nominal sap. I started fearing for our pancake breakfasts thinking we were going to get skunked this year for maple syrup. I should have known better because the trees did. The temps plummeted again and guess what started to wake up? The trees have been steadily dripping in the upper 30's and low 40 temps at night and below freezing at night. They knew to wait to bud out and rush all the sap to the top of the trees. We are thankful for it and may have one of the best sap years looking at the forecast for the next week. To the south though I think they did get skunked and the trees budded out too soon. I collected 3 buckets of sapsicles from the trees yesterday. They had to be thawed out, filtered and cooked Our batch of syrup bubbling away with more added everyday. The sugar content is getting higher and higher in the pot as the concentration goes up with each bucket added. The smell is wonderful! The chipmunks also got lured into coming out from hibernation early. This is the first one being entered into Troy's relocation program. This little bugger blatantly came down the basement steps, walked up to Troy, looked at him and proceeded to go right passed him to the back of the basement like he owned the place. He has a new home 5 miles away. You don't do that to the boss and expect to be welcomed in with open arms Cliff out on the ice. It has melted and frozen again. What looked like a short sit a week ago is looking a bit longer now The shoreline has frozen back up Looking a bit lonely on the ice Soon this will be a warm spot to sit Til it melts again we will deal with the snow and cold the only way we know how, making burgers regardless of the weather