Week of 3/17/25

This week, Monday, March 17th, started out cool with 19 in the morning, but it warmed up quickly to a high of 56. You would think that we would have a ton of sap, but we do not, as many of the tap holes are drying up due to the warm and windy weather. So I started to redrill the tap holes this afternoon, which should help. I saw some ducks on the pond this morning, and in the afternoon, I saw the first buzzard of the year. Almost 2 weeks early; maybe Spring is here.

Tuesday was very warm, reaching a high of 64. After feeding the cows on the ridge, I did some more re-tapping of the trees. Ted had re-tapped the trees in the Antonson woods yesterday and then went about collecting the sap. I got 570 gallons and started cooking at 1 and got done at 7 in the evening.

What a difference a day can make; after a high of 64 on Tuesday, it dropped to only 37 on Wednesday, cool and wet with rain changing over to snow by 4 in the afternoon. After chores in the morning and getting some syrup orders shipped off, I went to Dodgeville to do our shopping. In the afternoon, I made some telephone calls to bookstores.

By Thursday morning, there was 2” of snow on the ground, and the temp had dropped to 22 degrees. I got up to 42 good sap weather once the trees thawed out. Ted came and collected the sap in the evening, and I started cooking at 7 and was done at 10:30 Thursday night.

Friday was a warm sunny day with a high of 56 and a low of 24, a good sap day. After collecting the sap, I got the fire going in the afternoon and got done by 7 in the evening. I had an old neighbor and good friend stop by to see the operation. Bob Wardell, I hadn’t seen him for 20 years. I also had 2 bicyclists stop in to view the syrup making. They left each buying a half gallon.

Saturday was another good sap day with temps starting out at 24 and rising to 46 for a high. I cooked from 11:30 to 5:30.

Sunday was a cloudy, wet day, and we got over 1” of rain. We got the sap all collected before the rain started at 10 in the morning. We didn’t get a lot of sap. I fired up the cooker at 10 and got done by 1:30. Thus another busy week ended. Also, I got the book in 4 more stores this week.

-Helmuth Krause