Season #1 Is In The Books
Well we finished up on April 06, the official end of the season for Sap To Syrup’s inaugural year. What a blast. This syrupin isn’t so bad. It went by so fast we didn’t have time to go visit any of the other producers and see how things were in other bushes. But I did talk with Keith Brown and Bill Smith, it seems everyone had the same type of year. Low sugar content and dark syrup. We didn’t mind at all though, we were making syrup! YEEE HA. I still can’t sleep a full night being so acustom to getting up to stoke the arch. I still wake about every hour or so.
I went through the log book and did a count on how much syrup we actually made, 130 Litres is my count. I think it is right on the money.
We had quite the sound track this year as well. The sat radio came in handy. The 40′s 50′s 60′s 70′s and even the 80′s were some of finger snapping melodies we were groving to. If singing to syrup as it boils makes it taste better then we should have the best. The firewood music was supplied by a fellow islander that I used to work with at Thompson’s Maple products, the band is called The BREAKMEN. A real treat and fast becoming favorite of mine. You can check them out at http://www.thebreakmen.com/ They are a folk/Blue grass group. Great music to keep the spirit up while slaving away at the mundane task of firewood.
For our first year we had a few minor problems with getting to know how everything is going to run. Most problems were due to being distracted by the thousand things going on around us. The vacuum pump flooded a few times, over filling the gravity tank was always a fun one when Dave was sitting beneath it, or flooding the pan over the float box, and my favorite, forgetting to close the valve on the sap storage tank and getting excited watching the extractor pump over several times before realizing it haha. Oh well we needed to learn the hard way on some things I guess.
Dave and I would like to thank all of our friends and family that helped and supported us in this endeavor. We couldn’t have done it with out you. Especially our Moms who couldn’t stand the thought of us starving ourselves, and brought wonderful meals on wheels.
Well in closing I must say I miss it already and can’t wait for next year, and I know Dave feels the same. We plan on a few upgrades to the setup so stay tuned for some updates on our progress.
The memories layed down this year will last a life time.
Cheerio
Mike















