Spring

Last week started off a little cold. The mornings were frosty and the taps were quiet. As the days passed, mornings got warmer and highs pushed well into the 40s°F. And then the 50s°F. The maples started to run again.

Early in the week, the morning cold was augmented with snow. It would mostly melt by sunset.

In addition to melting snow, some evenings had noteworthy sunsets.

Back when snow covered Lucerne, the LLAA and a few volunteers put out some "Fishsticks" which is a modern affectation of what used to be called a crib.

The DNR claims they'll help the fishing. Huzzah!

With the warmer came another run of drips from the maples.

The drops quickly added up to very full buckets. We've never seen the trees run so hard this early in the season.

The sap was collected mostly in the evenings.

After being funneled into jugs, the tree runnings were hauled to the cookers.

Daylight savings time has given the sugarmen an extra hour of evening sunlight that was put to good use on the weekend.

Floating smoke and steam from the cookers is becoming a regular thing above the lake and trees.

With the cookers going 24 hours a day came our favorite thing: The night time "Cone of Flame" that sprouts from the stack of a well packed firebox.

Eventually the process ends in the sugary sweetness being run through a plate filter with an iffy belt and into bottles. This final act was performed twice last week.

Back in the woods, torrents of sap filled all the jugs and collecting buckets. The cookers could not keep up so the big boys were called in to get the sap out of the overflowing buckets 55 gallons at a time.

The melting snow and an ice clogged culvert have combined to produce some of the most impressive West Shore Drive flooding we've ever seen.

No ice measurement this week. We have reports that it's still well over a foot thick but it is starting to pull away from the shore!

Some early budding trees are showing signs of Spring.

A kindly woodland fuzzy has made it known to us that the bird feeder is empty and the birds are hungry so we should fill it up. For the birds. For the hungry birds.

I'd be wouldn't call it open water, but the ice is retreating from the shallower places on the lake. If the trend continues, we could get an early ice-out. Lake Wabikon usually goes out a week of two before Lucerne and it's still ice covered. I wouldn't walk on it though.

-Nemo's watching the maples for buds.

Spring

March 15th through 21st, 2021