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What Was Thought To Be The Last Syruping Weekend

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April 8th through 10th, 2011

Warmer temperatures arrived with us on Friday evening. Cooler temperatures earlier in the week produced a maple sap overload that was boiled away this weekend. The sun takes the warmth with it at night. The fire danger is officially LOW, so fighting the cold with campfires/cigars is not unsafe. Cocktails help too. The footing can be treacherous in the woods. More than once, the un-snowshoe wearing had the ground shift under them resulting in a muscle pulling dance of a sort. No sap was lost. Liquid was moved from buckets to jugs. And from jugs to cookers. The cookers were fired 24/3 Friday through Sunday. The wind was strong on Sunday just after midnight as evidenced by the bending of the cone-of-flame jetting from the stack. By Sunday noon, the trickle tube was quiet and 18.25 fresh gallons were in pint bottles. A hole was made in the ice on Sunday. There was 20.5 inches of very good ice separating us from the fish. Sunday morning. Having been denied a tee time at Nicolet (it's still closed), determined hackers took to the lake. Shrouds of cool fog, squeezed by the ice from the saturated air, passed over them as they pulled back the blade, these noble golfers in the mist. By early Sunday afternoon, the ice was just starting to pull away from the shore. We left. Five hours later, the UPS that powers the internet connection to the webcam began to scream. The lone tapper left at the cabin endured the high pitched, un-beautiful sound for just over an hour before he called. The sound was ended but it took the webcam's connectivity with it. We'll get it back up by Friday, long before the ice is unsafe to golf on. Streams swollen with snow melt, flowed into the lake from all shores all weekend. A lake level measurement should be possible next weekend.<br><br><br>-Nemo no longer gots your nose, he lost it sometime during the 4:30 AM firing. Sorry.

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