By which I mean two sets of cousins came to visit and help haul sap in from the sugarbush.
Bob's sister and family visited from Merry-land for nearly a week to celebrate Easter ... and then spent late afternoon on Sunday filling up the sap holding tanks.
The Girl and her first cousins hunt for Easter eggs
While I was busy with the Easter egg hunt, The Hubs, his sister The Troll, B.I.L. Rrrrrrick and Nephew#1 trudged out to the sugarbush to empty the rapidly overflowing sap buckets into the transport pails and bring them back to the sugarhouse. Unfortunately, it started to rain between truckloads 1 and 2. They were troopers, though, and brought it all in.
*spoiler alert*
reminder of the plot of The Maple Movie
(subtitled) The sap's journey:
Tree->galvanized bucket-> 5 gallon pail -> holding tank ->
evaporator -> syrup -> filter -> bottle
FIL Jim furiously boiled the sap on Sunday and Monday and pulled off gallons of delightfully golden sweet Maple Syrup. On Monday, the family spent the day bottling
(Syrup photography courtesy of the BIL Rrrrrick)
Then the cold weather swooped back in to halt sap flow just in time for Bob's cousin Sean and his two Seanlets to arrive from Virginia Beach.
Fortunately, the temps inched back up through the week and by Friday there was enough sap in the buckets to collect.
The Girl and her second cousin Rubydoo discover a very! full! sap bucket!!
Sean and the Seanlets empty sap buckets into the 5-gallon pails to transport the sap back to the sugarhouse.
Sweet maple-y goodness. Mmmmm....
I love it when cousins come to visit.
Especially when they do the work that The Hubs usually makes me do.
BWWWAAAHAHAHAHAHAAA!
(anyone else want to come visit?)
