Wool is in

One hat knit from the skeins of beautiful sportweight wool in brown grey and white. Wool spun by Loch's farm in Springville PA. This will be sold at farmers market or christmas time.

All records broken

Last night was an all records broken night. Sap collected, syrup made. And the weather just keeps on 20s/40s. It isn't supposed to go above 40 until after April starts.

On Monday we put a hole in our big plastic collection tank. While it was 300 gallons full. We didn't notice that the board keeping it away from the wheel had broken and so it rode for a while rubbing up against the tire. Yesterday Margie welded it together with another piece of the same plastic and today we will try out the fix. It was our one big disaster of the season so far and we made it through!

A huge Thank you to all the visitors and bucket pullers who made this season extra fun, enjoyable and easy.

night moon

When we first spotted the moon tonight it looked as if the hill was actually on fire. I had to look twice. night everyone and happy spring. Speaking of spring, supposedly it is arriving 8 hours early every year as tracked by sat images since 1982. You can add your spring observation for the phrenologists: http://www.sws-wis.com/lifecycles/dbase.html#submit

canning not boiling

chilly today, froze last night, maybe a small run, boil tomorrow.

another boil

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Today

The snow is falling like its not sure this is where it is supposed to be. Slow motion like.
The past couple of days have been cold, but yesterday when we tapped the big tree by the pond the sap was running on both the shady and sunny side. Now Mirah is "hoping not to get the dreaded thing." Today looks like a runner. Sol and Dyl had a discussion about probabilities. Dylan notices that when we are completely under prepared, no wood, the sap runs like crazy. Likewise when all hands are sick or missing from the farm the sap runneth like mad. Sol says there is no relation between things we can prepare for, like wood, and sap run, but there Could be a relation between sickness and sap run. Dylan took last night to write up the sap log. total sap collected this year 8680 gallons.

We just got here

Sol and I left for a week.
We came back just as Mirah was arriving.
Dyl and Marg had made 200 gallons of syrup.
That's half the season or so.
we hope