Building Gypsy Rose

Punxsutawney Phil never seems to get it right. Nor can I. I can never remember if that old groundhog’s shadow means more winter or less. A more reliable indicator of the season’s transition is the plink, plink, plink sound of sap droplets falling to the bottom of a bucket on warming winter days. Yesterday, the afternoon temps reached the upper 30’s. We spent the morning picking up our new evaporator and setting it up near the woodpile (hmmm, is a sugarhouse somewhere in future plans?). The snow was soft and spring-like under foot. We decided it was time to set the first spout. Late in the afternoon we drilled one of last year’s best producing maples. Sap began flowing down the trunk of the tree before I even hammered in the spile. Plink, plink, plink. With the first bucket hung, the sap was flowing at more than 150 drips per minute. Time to put other projects on the back burner, it’s sugarin’ time!