I have exactly one nice thing to say about the snow of the day before yesterday. And that is that at least we got a couple of days of respite from sugaring.
I’m sitting here at Cooter Hollow with my steaming pan on the woodstove in an effort to get caught up which is best described as “futile,” and probably more accurately described as “chasing our own asses.” We’ve been living the sap around here. Last weekend’s nights were spent with The Native having set the alarm on his phone for every hour on the hour, and mine set for every hour on the half, wherein we took turns staggering outside half-awake to keep the boiling going. We ripped through 46 gallons of sap, by my last count, and yielded a handsome gallon of the good stuff. I’m committing this to the supposed indelibility of the internet, because after three days of zombie-ing around due to lack of sleep and singular focus of this mission, I’m wondering if I’ll ever have the mettle to eat any of it.
I’m not complaining– he’ll think I’m complaining for certain! — but I’ve also been relieved to find buckets underproducing.
In other news, our Jeep is one step closer to being driven into the ground. We thought it was experiencing a kittenish renaissance in the middle of its senescence– the brake and check engine lights had mysteriously turned themselves off. In fact, it was just that the bulbs had blown. On top of that, we can proudly say that at long long last, one of its doors actually locks. Of course, this is only because the driver’s side door is now stuck in the closed position, meaning it’s a clown game to pile in through the passenger side, meaning it’s going to be a fun spring. If spring ever decides to come over this year. I don’t know what I did to piss it off so badly, but if you see it, let it know that I’m sorry, and I won’t complain about anything, any more, at all, if it’ll just drop by for a few hours.