Low 50s overnight.  A thunderstorm moved in around 5:00 AM.  We had thunder over an open woods (no leaves on the trees) which means more snow according to folklore.   Its surprisingly accurate.   Rained most of the morning.  Turned colder this afternoon with a north wind that picked up as the afternoon progressed.

Into the woods at 2:30 PM to clean the evaporator.   The cold wind bite.  We did get the front syrup pan cleaned up.    We had to return to the farmhouse because of cold hands.   Water and a cold wind don’t mix well.  Back to the farmhouse by 4:45 PM to warm up.   The rain returned too.

We also did the math on wood used this season.  Our main wood shed it 14’x15’x7 ½’.  1 cord equals 4’x4’x8′ or 128 cubic feet.  14’x15’x7 ½’ = 1575 cubic feet or 12.3 cords.  There’s and addon to the south side of 5’x10’x5′ = 250 cubic feet = 1.9 cords.   Woodshed total is 1825 cubic feet or 14.3 cords.

We didn’t use any wood from the south side addon.  From the main woodshed we used 7’x4’x7.5′ = 210 cubic feet of limb wood and two rows of larger split wood.  One row was 7’x3’x6′ = 126 cubic feet.  The second row was 7’x5.5’x6′ = 231 cubic feet.  Adding all together we get 210+126+231=567 cubic feet or 4.4 cords which we rounded to 4 1/2 cords of wood burnt for the season.  During our seasons without the R/O we would use 11-12 cords.  The woodshed was almost bare at the end of a season and especially when we had an above average crop.  Our main motivation for the R/O was to cut down on wood use.  We are accomplishing this.