Journal-Spring 2005

February 26--Sugar Shack preparation

A good crew showed up to officially kick off the season. The season unofficially began back in December, when there was a syrupers' meeting... Br. Walter, Bill & Linda Mock, Steve Saupe, Sarah Gainey, Tom Kroll, and Kyhl Lyndgaard (the diarist for 2005) were in attendance. On Feb. 26th, however, we had to get our hands dirty. Most all of the above helped that day, minus Tom, who has been working to procure a "new" tractor for us, and tapping in Long Prairie. Br. Walter's other duties as deacon in St. Joe and elsewhere also keep him from making as frequent appearances this year as in years past. A large crew of volunteers showed up, numbers buoyed by the nice weather (for February) which was around 35 degrees and partly sunny. The evaporator was assembled, with smoke and steam stacks. A lot of ice had built up in the stainless storage tanks, and enthusiastic students chipped the ice away--Steve was getting a bit worried they were too enthusiastic and might chip the metal away! Various other tasks were done. Sweeping the shack, reorganizing the cabinets and even moving them. Linda Mock helped with the inventory. We even found the plug for the floor drain! All in all, a very productive and enjoyable event.

March 5--Tapping

The 600+ taps were put in the maples, on another beautiful 30 degree day. Many volunteers appeared at 10am, and kept on arriving throughout the day. Steve Saupe ran the chainsaw-drill for the entire day. Sarah Gainey tried out the new tractor (a 1938 or so McCormick). Its advantage is that the front wheels are wider to help turning in the snow. Barrels were also strategically placed in the sugarbush.

March 6--Plumbing

Steve and Kyhl put in a couple hours connecting the tanks to the evaporator. Weather was in the 50s and the trees on south slopes with little or no snow cover were running strongly--many of the 3gal. buckets placed the previous day were more than half full. But with just the two of us, we decided to save collection for the next day when we could recruit more help.

March 7--Collection

Only those areas on south slopes really filled their buckets. A crew went out to battle the ice and get the "coconuts" of sap into the larger collection barrels. Not enough to cook with--save for the first festival?

March 12--Festival

The last five days have not seen temperatures above freezing, and so no sap has run, and the day of the festival is no exception. This is not unexpected weather for this time of year, but it does make putting on a Maple Syrup Festival a bit problematic. Rather than cooking sap down to syrup, we simply ran the evaporator slowly and put water in the pan to avoid burning it. This might seem like a waste of valuable fuel, but it was needed to keep our brave volunteers and attendees warm! We also had a small bonfire, and so history talks were done sitting on straw bales around the fire. Temperatures were only around 20-25 degrees, but with mostly sunny skies and only a slight breeze, conditions were actually rather pleasant--just not pleasant enough for sap to flow. Tom and Michelle Carlson set up a retail table, as we do not sell any syrup. Their sugarbush is only a couple of miles south of campus. One horse team from Jeff and Sue Burg served once again as a shuttle from the prep school to the sugar shack, but their second team that did collection duty was not used as the sap was not running, and the trails were glare ice under a dusting of snow from the previous day. A few sets of coyote prints showed that at somebody had been checking our operation out despite the 8 degree overnight low.  Sarah Gainey did an excellent job coordinating the event, and with any luck, we will have a much better day for the second festival!