Into the woods by 5:30 AM to cook. Without the R/O cooking is straight forward: keep adding wood to the evaporator. There’s no checking on the R/O pumps, adjusting settings, use the transfer pump, managing water for R/O washing. Just bring in wood for firing. We did fix some of the sap-saks with new zip ties or replace spouts.
Considered collecting. There was sap from yesterday. But at Noon spouts were wet but not dripping much. We decided to wait until tomorrow to collect. Hope that works out.
With collecting off the schedule, we turned to bottling. There would be enough time after finishing cooking to bottle a milk can. Cooking should be done by 2:30 or 3:00 PM. We started the finishing pan by 1:30 PM so the syrup could finish about the time cooking finished. It was 4:30 PM before we were ready to bottle. Finish bottling by 5:15 PM. It felt good to bottle another milk can. Back to the farmhouse by 5:30 PM.
Mid-20s overnight. It took until 10:30 AM to start melting. But the crowns remained cool because yesterday’s snow on the limbs wasn’t melting and trees weren’t dripping. Sunny and mid-30s today. Tonight is mid-20s again, but mid-40s tomorrow.
The day cooking
7:00 AM 15”
8:00 AM 12 ½”
9:00 AM 11”
9:00 AM batch
10:00 AM 9 ¼”
11:00 AM 7 ¼”
12:00 PM 5 ½”
12:50 PM batch
1:00 PM 3 ½”
2:00 PM 2 ½”
3:00 PM done