What A Night!

 

Today my dad headed back to the woods after work to get started on boiling. I helped get dinner ready to bring back to the woods and then I went up to the farm to air up the side by side's tire and feed the cows some hay. I came home and we headed back to the woods to start gathering. We gathered our south loop first and soon realized it was gonna be a long night. It was just my mom, two sisters, Paul, and me gathering at the time. We came back to the shack and I pumped the sap into one of our storage tanks and then we pushed forth and gathered our back loop. A bunch of help showed up shortly after we began the back loop. We had Paul Seese, Dave and Mylena Roe, Ben and Whitney Wisner with their 3 kids, Karen and Meghan Hendrix, Sue and Bridgett Clay, and then my family of 5. Dad stayed at the shack and boiled the whole time. I came and unloaded the sap wagon after the back loop was done, and everyone else continued to gather until their buckets were full. We gathered up our front loop and finished right before dark with a really nice sunset in the background. I pumped the rest of the sap into the tank and drained the hoses and the pump. I filled the 1,500 gallon tank up to the rim with sap. It will take about 17 hours to boil all that down. We had tacos for dinner and then people started to take off. I walked the 1/2 mile home with Paul, Sue, and Bridgett. You could see Jupiter and Venus shining bright in the sky as well as Orion's Belt constellation. If you ever try looking for Orion's Belt, just look at his waist. After we got home, I walked up to the farm and threw down some round bale for the cows to eat and a bunch of straw for them to lay on. I spreaded out the straw in the pen and then walked back home. I fixed the fire with 16 pieces of wood for the night. Mom and dad got back home at 11:00 PM after making 12 gallons of syrup.