April Fools...a week early.

It's hardly surprising any more - spring made a false start on the Ides of March, landing me with a bandaged finger and a bunch of tapped trees. The first day of spring brought, yeah, snow and a lot of wind: The following week teased us with winter. I boiled what little we collected over the week as I huddled in the stove-heated sugar shack (okay, so it got up to 64 degrees F in there - and stayed stubbornly in the 20s outside). But boil I did! And the strange weather has been a great opportunity for me - I can only collect sap at about the speed I can boil it. But then there wasn't enough snow to cool it off with... The sap froze solid in the bags and I collected five gallons of ice. One beautiful day of spring on Monday, and April Fools arrived a day early with The foolery? The temperature dropped, it snowed, and then sap ran. Heh, go figure.

As of today I have three and a half gallons of half syrup and 20 more gallons of unboiled sap collected. As to what is still running in the veins of those poor trees only tomorrow (or the first better weather) will tell.

How much wood have I chopped? I lost count of that long ago.