Sunday, March 20, 2011

Splitting Logs in Opals & Anne Taylor

Man plans; God & maple trees laugh.  Maple trees are a little like our infant, Rachel:  we go by their schedule, not the other way around.  The original plan had been to boil sap yesterday and take today off, but with the sap continuing its stubborn trickle until a late afternoon deluge, boiling was postponed until today.  No problem… since we were inviting 16 of our closest family members over to lunch after Rachel’s baptism this morning, we knew we’d have plenty of help with the sap collecting and fire tending. 
After a lunch delayed by a few non-tree-related unforeseen circumstances (namely, locking ourselves and all our guests out of the house!), the nieces & nephews were all pressed into service gathering sap.  In the mud.  By the time Michelle got her jeans & boots on, and Rachel bundled up in her baby snowsuit for a little jaunt outside, our toddler Amanda had coated the knees and seat of her snow pants with mud and her cousins were up to their elbows in sap (figuratively speaking). 

The five kids who were old enough to empty or carry buckets had brought back quite a bit of sap, but there was lots left to collect, so Jason & Dad Carr took the 4-wheeler out on another sap collection (and lid- and bucket-straightening) run.  Unfortunately, they had not split enough logs to keep the fire going and the sap boiling while they were gone.  Which is how, after handing Rachel over to Mom Carr safe-keeping, Michelle came to be splitting logs in her best opals and Anne Taylor sweater.  As Jason joked upon his return, “When I bought you those earrings for Christmas, I always pictured you chopping wood in them!”  
After a six hour shift that ended with Jason & Dad Carr boiling by the light of their headlamps, 70 gallons of sap had been reduced to a couple gallons of “nearly finished” syrup to store in the fridge until tomorrow’s finishing step.   Please note:  if there is no blog post tomorrow, it means that we’re too sore from chopping wood to lift our arms.