On the second last full day of Winter, the air was above freezing, a bit of lawn was exposed and the sap was running.
About 100 gallons of fresh sap was sledded out of the northwoods and on deck to be boiled down Friday night and Saturday morning.
By Saturday morning the last of the on deck sap was trickling into the pans.
Starting late Saturday morning, the maples began to run again.
Before being mustered out into the woods on Saturday, a hole was bored into the lake to check the ice thickness.
There was 24 inches of very clear ice covering the north end of lake Lucerne.
As the sun passed from afternoon to evening, our squad leader, having detected no rebellion from the squad, pushed to empty all the buckets in the woods. Little did he know that talk of mutiny had begun, but the last bucket was emptied just before the draftees dropped their funnels and ran for freedom.
The 5 member squad of sap collecting conscripts hit the bush later Saturday afternoon. The snow prevented the ATV from being able to climb the hill to the tapped trees, so a slog to the trees was added to the trudge between all the buckets.
The cold had a silver lining. The ATV was able to climb over the frozen snow to get the 640 pounds of sap abandoned in the woods. 720 pounds were sleded to the road the previous day. That proved to be no fun.
In an all too familiar contradiction, on Sunday (the first day of spring) the lake area was pasted with big globs of snow and cold.
Phase I : The snow begins to melt and patches of ice become visible.
Phase II : Liquid water begins to pool on the surface of the lake. It is not uncommon to have a strong cold front push the state of the ice back to Phase I (Boo).
Phase III: Ice begins to pull away from the shore.
Phase IV: The ice turns black (rotten ice) and puddles disappear as the water seeps into the increasingly porous surface.
Phase V: The remaining ice begins to move, pilig up on which ever shore is downwind.
Phase II of ice-out 2011 slipped back to phase I on Sunday. Boo. It's going to take some really freaky hot weather to de-ice the lake and open the golf courses anytime soon. There is still close to 2 feet of snow in the woods. That should help with the lake level when it melts.
--Nemo dropped his funnel and ran at the first sign of revolt.
