200 buckets of sap on the wall, 200 buckets of sap, if one of the buckets should fall, then 199....

200 5-gallon buckets to be cleaned as maple sap season ends. Half are done, and then we took a break and hit the Laketown Lutheran Church for a pancake supper!

With Dave helping we pulled the 200 sap buckets today and started cleaning them and putting them away for the season.  We didn't know how many were out until we brought them in.  They were still running when we pulled the taps, but we are 500 gallons of sap behind right now and need to cook it down before it spoils in the 72 degree temperature (from noon - 7 pm stayed at 72).  

Pulled off 10 gallons of syrup this morning, slightly darker and a little more maple flavor--but still quite mild.  Got the Cub Cadet stuck in a muddy low spot back in the woods even with the chains on and threw mud all over jerking it back and forth to get it out--hauling a trailer load of empty pails--made it more work to clean them up!

The frogs were croaking in the ponds by noon--really the first that every little woods pond was filled with sound.  The lake is beginning to melt in from the edges and has that blue water-soaked ice look that tells you it hasn't long to stay.  

The lake ice is getting that water-soaked look that means another day or so and it will be gone!  Latest I can remember.  

Buz Swerkstrom of downtown Atlas biked over today and dropped off a proof copy of his newest book--"Sgt. Pepper's Inner Grove" a novel about music.  I helped him with the cover and getting it into print--not very much work as he had everything ready. A little more tweaking on the cover and proofing the inside and it will go into print--probably a few weeks.   Hope to start reading it tonight.  
Buz said that there were several ice fishermen out on Long Trade Lake at Atlas--they walked out rather than drove!

Cushing Tigers "Elmo Wilson" appreciation bat --a few of the signatures.  1925-1950  Donated to the Cushing Museum by the Wilson Family.