A Near Disaster

Today was a lot colder than it was yesterday. My dad and I went back to the shack and began getting ready to boil. He swapped the two front pans around while I scooped out all the ash from the last boil. I had to come home to get some people for gathering, and then when we got back and was ready to start gathering, I realized that the hoses and pump were frozen on the sap wagon. I had forgotten to drain them the night before. I set the pump in by the hot fire to thaw and used some hot sap to melt the ice in the hoses. We also had a leak in one of the hoses, so I cut a new hose piece and put the fittings on it to replace the bad one. There was ice in the buckets as we gathered, and it came out when we dumped the buckets. As time went on, the ice got thicker and soon enough we were having to break through the ice to get the sap out. We were pushing limits as these buckets were getting close to freezing and splitting. We were hoping to get all the ice out of the buckets today, but it was too thick. All we could do was get the sap out and hope the ice doesn't expand anymore. In total tonight we gathered 400 gallons of sap. I unhooked and drained the pump and hoses on the sap wagon, and then I brought the tractor to the farm and fed my cows a bunch of hay for the night and some corn. I walked home and made dinner and then my mom came and got me in our side by side. We ate dinner back at the shack, and I pumped the rest of the sap we gathered today into another tank. I made sure to drain all the hoses and the pump used to transfer sap from one tank to another before I came home for the night. We made almost 9 gallons of syrup tonight. I filled our wood burner full of wood for the night to keep the house warm as we are supposed to be getting some colder weather with freezing rain and snow.