Syrup success

  We pleasantly suprized ourselves last Wednesday evening when we checked the boiling sugar sap and the hydrometer (fancy name for a floating tube that tells you when the syrup makes) read 32.  Success, it's maple syrup. Over one and half gallons total.  

 Our fun and syrup adventure involved alot of time and help from friends and family. We tapped the trees on Sunday evening, Conard collected the sap on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Guy went to our neighbor Phil's to get his propane syrup finisher that Phil and his dad used in the 1970,s when their sugar camp was in full operation. Phil was pleased to see it being used again, and he was a major resource drawing from years of experience.

 Sandy was getting the boiling pan and all the other equipment together when she realized the boiling pans were wanting to leak. Sandy took the pans to her dad to seal. Which he did in a fine fashion. On her trip over she spyied that a friends of our's sugar house had smoke coming out of the chimney, we decided we should go and get some advice from him. Jeff had his sugar house in full swing and the sweet smell was just overwhelming. We left with encouragement and a nice sample of finished syrup to try.

 We started boiling Wednesday morning, and thanks to Phil stopping by a few times to check on us sap rookies it went pretty smooth. Success was achieved about 7:30 that evening. We tasted way to much and put the wonderful syrup in canning jars with a triumphet look in our eyes.

 The next morning we just had to have pancakes.