Into the woods by 9:00 AM.  Back to the house by 4:30 PM.   All the spouts are pulled from the trees.   The buckets are still upside down by the trees to dry out.  Tomorrow we hope to pick them up.

Also worked on cooking down the sap in the evaporator.    We fire to a light boil then let it simmer.  By late afternoon it was cooked down quite far.  Tomorrow we will fill the big pan with water then add milk stone remover which we use to clean the pans.  We consolidate all the sap into the front pan while the water and milk stone is in the back pan then light a fire to cook the sap.   The milk stone remover needs heat to work its magic so this arrangement works well. 

Tomorrow we start the day with a  water run.  We fill the 200 gallon collecting tank with water so we have enough for cleanup.

The pipes from the storage tanks to the evaporator are down and rinsed.

Up to 63 today.  Farther from Lake Michigan its getting into the 70s.  Even with this warm weather the buds on the trees are still dormant.   That’s surprising.