Week 81 - Mapling

This post was better - but Mozilla and Google seem to hate each other and are always fighting about who gets to freeze up and crash my computer.

Not much happening on the work front again this week but a lot to talk about at home. It's going to be a pretty weird year for making maple syrup. Just like that it was 50F, the sun was out and the sap started running. And once it starts running, you'd better tap those trees before they're done for the season. It doesn't really hurt the trees even though you can see scars from the year before. We like to pull the taps and allow the tree to heal between years but some people are lazy and just leave the taps in for the tree to grow around. Ouch! This year I decided not to tap the trees at our own house because I didn't want to pay for shipping from Lehman's for new metal taps. Instead, Dad said I could help them out and share the sap from their trees. My main contribution will be to check the trees while they're on vacation, collect sap into buckets that I provide because they are never able to keep clean buckets from being used on something horrible (probably blame my younger brother?) and burn wood to help boil all the sap.

When it comes to boiling sap, not all trees are created equal. Bigger trees make more gallons of sap and so faster growing maple species are more likely to be bigger and make more sap. But slowing growing maples, like the sugar maple invest more heavily in their sap and make less of it. It's very similar to the difference between Holstein and Jersey dairy cows, except in this case we're talking about brix (sugar content) instead of butterfat differences. My dad says the best trees, or "super maples", are the ones that look just a bit gnarly on the branches and we have plenty of these close to the family home. They aren't big because they grow a bit slower but even a tree 1 foot in diameter can yield a gallon of sap a day. It's not fast but it adds up over the course of a day. The trick with this year is that it might be a few days in between sap runs because the weather has been so drastically dynamic.

One day sun, the next a blizzard. The sheep seem to feel it coming on.

That weather has done a number on the sheep, wearing them down and desensitizing them to the brutal changes in the weather. And it has also done a number on the local roads. I was the beneficiary of a huge hole down near wear I work. I was on my way home from playing basketball and couldn't see it in the dark. It swallowed poor Scoot (my green Corolla) and spat us out on the other side short a tire and riding a bent wheel. My sincere thanks to Goodyear for beating the crap out of the wheel the next day to get it back into shape. You saved me a dreaded trip around the junkyards to find a replacement and made my day seem so much better.

The other big happening this week was our first authentic king cake to celebrate Mardi Gras. Back in February, I snuck a couples' Valentines Day dinner behind my wife's back and she returned the favor for Mardi Gras. I stared in surprise as our friends pulled into the drive and walked into the house to find her pulling out a king cake shipped all the way from Cajun country Louisiana. Wow! And so much sugar on the thing. I sure felt penitent the next day, but that's what Fat Tuesday is all about, right? The cake was great and nobody choked to death on the plastic baby inside.

This year our pastor encouraged the church not to give things up for Lent but rather to add something new to your life for the better. I'm unfortunately already committed to my decision for this year but will keep this concept in play for next year. This time around I plan to replace so of my more questionable music with Christian radio in an effort to be a nicer driver on the road and a better role model for our daughter. Here's to hoping, anyway...