It started with the end of Zombie Winter, but Spring eventually returned last week. Air temperatures rose, snow piles shrunk, and there was talk of golf among the men.
And the maples ran like crazy. We collected over 1,000 gallons during the week with the bulk filling the buckets on Monday and Tuesday.
The cookers were fired 24 hours a day in a vain effort to keep up with the trees.
No matter how hot the flames, the sugarmen fell further behind until the weekend.
Sometime in the wee hours on Friday, someone missed the turn in the corner of the lake, hit the still impressive snow piles, went airborne over the bar's driveway, landed and skidded to a lawn ripping halt 200 feet later, then rutted another 100 feet of lawn back to the road. We slept through the entire affair.
To the people involved in this shenanigan: Thanks for not hitting the Lake Lucerne sign. Please don't do it again.
The lake's public boat landing has a new inspection shed.
Special thanks to Bucky for his lumber donations and that Joe guy for designing and building it.
Late last week, we sent the drone up to get a feel for the state of the lake ice.
On the South end, there's a little open water on the edges, but it's still mostly ice.
It's the same story for the North end of Lake Lucerne
The sap run slowed and then stopped on Saturday.
Buckets, spiles, and lids were pulled.
The piles of tapping flotsam were carted from the increasingly snow free woods.
And deposited in huge stacks at Knott Lane.
The Washing of the Buckets is a little like the Running of the Bulls but with less goring and more bleach. There's not so much running either.
There were an awful lot of buckets, but now they're clean. All that remains of tapping season are several 55 gallon barrels of sap that are currently being boiled down to eventually become the last batch of syrup.
It's been a good tapping season, but now it's time to focus attention on the plight of the lake ice. It's unclear how thick it is, but it turned black on Sunday. It could make May. It wouldn't surprise us if it didn't. The body that officially calls ice-out on the lake, The College of Loons (Lake Lucerne's most mysterious and somewhat secret society) has been put on alert. There's much rain in the forecast. That'll speed the rush to open water in addition to raising the lake level.
-Nemo's still working on the secret and mysterious handshake.
