Spring Thoughts
Signs of Spring
Days like these are why I love sugaring. It gets you outside on during some really crappy conditions, and I have found that no matter the weather, I can find something beautiful in the day. I have just been outside on a beautiful winter day. It is about 15 degrees with some wind (and, try as I might, I have not been able to find beauty in a winter's wind). I am shoveling out deep, crusty snow from the mainlines and thinking about spring peepers. I might be the only person, other than a herpetologist, thinking about peepers right now. Even at 15 degrees, spring is in the air. I can feel it when I wake up and first walk outside. You can hear it in the bird songs, and while I don't think of vultures as harbingers of spring, we saw our first pair soaring this week as well as red-winged blackbirds. All this makes me think that the first peeps of spring peepers cannot be too far away, and that thought scares me. Spring peepers pretty much usher in the end of sugaring season. Is it possible that those little frog peeps are what cause the maple trees to bloom? I don't think so, but the association is powerful.
It is not short sleeve weather yet
Crunching the Numbers
It seems like we have had a cold and snowy winter, but I bet this is more on par with the historical average winter than those of the last 10 years or so. We have been out in the woods a lot, finding and fixing leaks, cutting fallen trees, and making sure we are ready when the sap really starts to flow. This year, we have had the luxury of time to be in the woods before some big sap runs. Last year our first boil was on January 13th, and our last boil was on March 16th. It used to be unheard of to boil in January but now when we have not boiled by mid-February, we think something is amiss. The problem with such an early season is that we do not have as much time to be in the woods before sap starts flowing and we are, really chasing leaks (to our tubing system). We have boiled twice this year, and the next two weeks look perfect and we are ready. There are a couple of too warm days mixed into the forecast for my liking, but we're hoping the rest of March does what it has historically. An interesting number arises when we look back at sugaring season over the years; twenty-five. It seems no matter the start date of the season, we get about 25 boils per season give or take. If the weather holds for the rest of March, we are right on track.
Low Battery
My watch and phone always tell me when I have 20% battery left. Nature doesn’t have a warning message that lets you know what is left. I am not sure that I want to know how much time is left in the sugaring season. What I do know is that when my device is down to 10%, I pay more attention to what I am doing so I can find time to recharge. In that way, maple sugaring is like technology – you only get so much time on a charge. As this season gets into full swing this week, I hope our trees are fully charged from this cold and snowy winter. Our goal is to make wonderful maple syrup up until the time when the spring peepers tell us it is almost time to recharge.
Steam coming from the sugarhouse
We will be at the Berkshire Grown Winter Market in Housatonic on March 15th - 10-2.