I find it to be a challenging task to write this in a way that isn’t a list of things we got done. There’s a story in clearing a felled tree from a cabin and collecting maple sap for syrup. However, extracting the story is daunting. I enjoyed Monday night Bible study as we have started reading through the book of Mark. Mark starts off right in the action, similar to my weeks.
Samuel and Tim came out on Monday to clear a multi ton tree and thus began the very sound removal of a red oak. This mammoth of a tree had fallen on an upper boy’s cabin, named after its color, orange cabin. This tree was not a quick cut away. It had from 200 lb. to over 450 lb. chunks that needed lowered over a rock cliff. Fortunately, one of Cody’s hobbies is rock climbing, so he used his gear to lower the logs down as softly as he could. I was not on rock cliff duty however, I helped with clearing the branches off the path in order to drive the bobcat up to clear logs. This job may sound small, but the oak actually knocked over a large pine and sheered several others. Therefore, there was an extensive amount of branches to clear, firewood to load and sticks to pile. With only five guys, minimal gear and nine hours to work we did manage to clear 80% of the beast with the rest looming for the future.
Last week, and hopefully next, there was a nice byproduct to the weather and time of year. The weather was freezing during the night, and above freezing during the day, which allowed the maple sap to flow well. That is a fact which I had no knowledge of prior to Roger informing me it was syrup season. I had some intuition that we were going to collect because Roger had mentioned tapping the trees.
What I imagined this meant, however, was a far cry from the five gallon buckets sloshing about as we carried them through the slippery thicket of the Kentucky hills. I thought of a gentle hill side in the country of PA with long lines connecting each tree and syrup flowing from the trees themselves. That was not the case. Sap is on average 98% water. Water is not syrup! To be honest with you, this water is the best water I’ve ever tasted. That 2% makes a difference! It’s like nature’s flavored water. We carried these buckets to dumping stations Roger had set up. We had driven the side by side up a tortuous bumpy path to fill a 50 gallon drum. Guess what we did next? We drove down the tortuous bumpy path, with sap sloshing behind us, all the way to the boiling station. On the best day of collecting we were able to get 70 gallons of sap which sounds like a lot of syrup. It’s really not. The rate of sap to syrup is roughly 40 gallons to one gallon of syrup after boiling the sap down. We hope that the weather allows us to continue to collect next week.
This week’s prayer request is to find routines that energize me because I don’t want to burn myself out. Also I’ve started to get more into face care. Last fall I invested in hair care so now I’m enjoying the discovery of face care. If any of you have recommendations I will gladly accept. I’d like to close with a scripture on my heart.
Psalm 63:7
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
Baker at bethel 