We completed most of the cleanup today. The main evaporator and all finishing and bottling pans are clean. All the buckets and covers are in from the woods. We finished boiling down all the sap. The last batch had a lot of sugar sand. What is sugar sand? Its like hard water. Hard water has a lot of minerals in it. Those minerals cause rust stains in sinks and tubs. Or lime build up around faucets. Sugar sand is mineral particles in the sap. Sugar clings to it and it settles to the bottom of the bottle or stays suspended in the syrup causing it to look cloudy. Sugar sand increases as the season goes along. We filtered the final batch of syrup three times through the filter press. During the first pass we had to change filters twice. During the second pass we had to change the filter once. And only on the final pass did we get all the syrup through. It was a lot more work, but the final result was worth it: crystal clear syrup. We still have to wash the sticky floors and do other clean up. And we have to total up the final production of syrup. In a few days that will be done and we will post our final thoughts for the 2005 season.