Journal - Spring 2002

Tuesday, February 25

Day 1. Today at 9:00 a.m. after a fresh snow of 7 inches Steve Saupe, John Geissler, Curt Coudron, and Luke Schumer were lead by Br. Walter and his 4 wheel drive Toyota out to the sugar shack for the first time.  Upon arrival we began bringing all of the stored containers out of the jam packed sugar shack.  After filling up the green #10 truck with collection buckets, we went to start up the old brown truck behind the wood pile.   To our surprise, when we lifted up the hood we found that mice had chewed through the radiator hose.  Just when you thought we were out of luck, Br. Walter pulled out some duct tape and the problem was solved. From there we loaded up the rest of the collection buckets into the brown truck and stacked the 55-gallon drums in front of the wood pile.  Next we removed the fire stack on the north end of the shack, so we could remove the pans for cleaning.  We borrowed the lift truck from grounds to transport the pans to the Physical plant. There, we used a pressure washer and elbow grease to remove the sugar sand and soot from previous years.   We placed the clean pans back in position and connected them with hose clamps.  The drain plug (stashed in the finishing stove) was placed in the north end of the pan.  Foam guards were placed between the sections, the huge pan topper was lowered into position, and the fire chimney was replaced on the north end.  It was a productive day at the shack.  We were finished by 4:15 p.m.

Tuesday, February 26

John Geissler, Steve Saupe and Luke Schumer met Br. Walter Kieffer bright and early at the monastic apple cellar to load up the maple syrup jugs on the flatbed truck that we borrowed from the grounds crew. We hauled more than 100 gallon jugs to the kitchen and ran them through the dishwasher. Luke was the main jug loader putting them on the dishwasher conveyor belt while John removed and inspected them at the other end. Steve boxed up the clean jugs and returned the "rejects" to Luke for another trip through the washer. Several jugs needed to be run through the washer several times and a few recalcitrant jugs even needed to be handwashed. We also ran the spiles through the washer. Br. Walter was busy helping in all areas and working on sorting and organizing the spiles.

With a truckload of clean jugs we went out to the sugar shack and stacked the jars in the shed. Then, Br. Walter and John went up on the roof to secure the chimney for the wood stove and the steam stack. Although Br. Walter and John complained about the wind and cold, Steve and Luke surely had the toughest job of working inside the warm and safe shack handing the boys on the roof the tools while providing words of encouragement.

After inspecting the chimney and steam stack we called it a day and were finished by about 12:30 p.m.

Thursday, February 27

John and Steve spent about an hour and half tidying up the shack for tapping day. We swept the floor, organized the tools, and generally spiffed up the place. We are now "officially ready" for visitors and tapping day.

Sunday, March 3

Tapping Day.  With a stellar group of die-hard volunteers, we were able to tap on the coldest day of the season with no complaints.  At 9:00 a.m. when we began the temperature was a cozy -7 and warmed up to 1 above at 4 p.m. when we had completed tapping over 600 trees.  Volunteers included Tech environmental studies teacher Jennifer Doom and her husband Ben along with several of her students including Amii Goenner, Josh Platz, Adam Harvey, Jill Niezgocki, and Kristi Kelly.  Steve and his daughter, Amy Saupe, John, Luke Schumer and our neighbors Tom, Shelly and Ben Honer were also a key part of the action.  Br. Walter ran the drill followed by flurry of spile drivers, bucket hangers, and lid connectors.  A beautiful day of teamwork in the woods.

Saturday March 16, 2002

Jump-start Saturday:  After 17 inches of snow, Br. Walter, John and Steve arrived at the sugar shack to shovel out.  It was one of those days when the tractor needed to be jump started by the brown truck, which needed to jump-started by the green truck which was almost stuck in the snow bank.  Between snowdrifts and cold machines, it was not a productive day.   On the bright side, we didn’t have to jump start Br. Walters cell phone and it was a good day for snowballs. 

Sunday March 17, 2002

The First Collection:  Armed with ice picks and screw drivers student volunteers Brady Markell, Steve, Nate Rose, and Vanessa joined John Geissler and Steve Saupe to empty the frozen buckets. The buckets ranged from being a quarter to totally full.  Since sugar water requires a lower temperature to freeze than water, the buckets were partially frozen with pockets of concentrated sugar water (10% sugar) that was collected and transported to six 55-gallon drums arranged throughout the sugarbush.  Approximately 100 gallons of this high sugar content sap was collected.   The collection took about four hours to complete with 6 workers.  The highlight of the day was drinking the concentrated sugar water from the frozen ice blocks….it was like drinking from an oversized cold coconut.   Br. Walter and Br. Isidore worked on installing the sap pre-heater and water condensor in the evaporator.

Monday March 18, 2002

Tech High School Tour:   Our first tour of the season began at 12:30 with the arrival of 100 tech high school students.  Tom Kroll took half the students and they worked on sap collection and calculating flow rate.  The other 50 kids were divided into three smaller groups that rotated through the following stations: John- Sugar concentration and sugar shack tour:   Steve- winter tree I.D. and tree physiology: Derek Larson- the history of maple syruping.  At 1:45, the 50 kids collecting switched with the 50 kids at the stations.   The tour was enjoyed by all and received rave reviews from the teachers.  It was fun to see the students that helped with the initial tapping.  Future tour leaders and Service Learning students Nick McClure and Katie Ploeger observed the teaching stations.

Saturday March 23, 2002

Maple Syrup Festival.  Today we held our first annual festival on a beautiful day.  The sun was blazing and the temperature was above freezing.  More than 200 visitors walked and rode on the horse-drawn wagon out to the sugar shack.  Once at the shack the visitors could eat maple syrup sundaes, have a hot beverage, tour the cooker with Br. Walter, learn about tapping and sap flow from John Geissler and Steve Saupe, respectively, and collect sap with Tom Kroll.  Everyone seemed to have a great time and we are already looking forward to next year.

Thursday March 28, 2002

Today we collected sap.  John and Steve were joined by volunteers Marilyn Stanley, Paul Theis, Chris Stanley.  It took about 2 hours to empty 600 buckets.  After our volunteers left, John,  Br. Walter and Steve took the tractor and tanker back out to to the woods to empty the collection barrels and transfer the sap to the holding tank.

Friday March 29, 2002 (Good Friday)

Br. Walter always says that Holy Week is always the best flow so it was fitting that this was our first day of cooking!  Br. Walter, Steve, and John arrived at the shack about 8:00 am and fired up "the dragon".  We cooked about 3 tanker loads of sap down to about 25 gallons of nearly finished syrup.  We were finished by about 2:00, just in time for church. 

Saturday March 30, 2002

Another sap collecting day.  John and Steve were joined by Cathy Campbell and experienced sap collectors, Paul Theis and Marilyn Stanley.  Mike Thomas, Matt Thomas, and Cheryl Forsberg who were out for a walk and couldn't help but jump in and collect sap when they saw how much fun we were having.  Today we took the tanker straight into the field and dumped the sap directly into the tanker.  It worked well and saved a special trip to the field to empty the collection barrels.

Monday April 1, 2002

Finishing day.  Today John, Steve, Br. Walter, and Br. Isidore finished the syrup that we had cooked on Friday.  We fired up the finishing stove and ended the day with 19 jugs (about 20 gallons total) of beautiful syrup.

Thursday April 3, 2002

Br. Walter, Steve and John were joined by Luke Schumer to fix the leaky coupling between the middle pan and front pan.  The most difficult part of the job was making sure that when the pans were put back they were perfectly square on the cooker box.  We also installed a very expensive device to monitor the fluid level in the holding tank - a $0.99 piece of plastic tubing that fit over the air-bleed nipple on our pre-heater.  Br. Walter's clever idea will let us know the height of the sap remaining in the holding tank without having to run outside and check.