The race was on to beat the ice. Boiled all night. Took shifts. Dad went in at 7:30 in the evening. Dean and Karl stayed until mid-night when Dad came back to complete the boiling. He finished be 7:30 am.  There is still sap in the evaporator waiting to boil down to syrup. But the sap is out of the tanks so we won’t get ice blocks. Once in the evaporator we can always start a fire to melt the ice. It took about 20 hours to boil through the sap. And we bottled 21 quarts of syrup already. At 10:26 pm CST we officially completed the first gallon of syrup for the 2004 season. Dad reports the morning shift from mid-night to 7:30 am was very cold! As the tanks emptied, the firing slows down and generates less heat. And then all the steam and dripping water starts to freeze. We have an impressive collection of ice hanging from the windows.