Advances in technology have allowed us to write and post this article to the website right from the woods.  No, we do not have an Internet connection in the woods.   Rather we tether our smartphone to our netbook and use the Internet connection on the smartphone to post to the website.  Or do other Internet work.

It did not freeze last night.  Today was mostly sunny and into the 50s.  The forecast was for cloudy weather.  Got that wrong.  Tomorrow rain is forecast.

Into the woods by 8:00 AM for what we knew would be a busy day.  Got our pan cleaned and had a fire going by 8:30 AM.  Checked some buckets: mostly full, as expected.   Pushed hard on boiling because we knew we would need the storage tank space.  We also had to bottle: we had a milk can full of syrup.    By 10:30 AM the syrup was on the finishing pan.  The stage was set, would we get help?  By 11:30 AM we were still alone.

Between 12:30 PM and 1:00 PM all kinds of people showed up to help.  Still not sure where they all came from.  One was experienced at driving tractors, so that assignment was easy.  There was a family with two boys.  A nephew also came.  And two sisters.   So now collecting, cooking and bottling were all happening at the same time.  Much different from earlier in the week when this was a solo operation.  It was nice not to collect. 

We bottled 30 quarts and 1 pint.  We also collected 585 gallons of sap.  All our storage tanks are full.  We have about 30 hours of cooking ahead of us.

And visitors came.  Three or four families.  The kids seemed to enjoy playing in the mud.  Gave everyone the tour.  They enjoyed it.  We enjoy having visitors.