Dear Curiosity Journal,
So, I literally made it rain in the farmhouse. Let me explain. We’re in the stage of boiling sap when the novelty has worn off and it seems like the canning process is never going to end. Abundance is curious that way. Needless to say, Rufus is anxious to wrap this baby up and move on to gardening. So, he brings me these 5 gallon buckets of translucent sap. “This looks really watery!” I say, reeling at how long it still had to go. We usually bring it in the house when it’s “near syrup”. In a hurry, Rufus says, “I know, but we need to get it done”. Okay, if you say so. Twelve hours later, a maple steam cloud hung overhead and precipitated down onto the pages of my book. Everything was damp and sticky. I informed Rufus of the weather formation. Upon entering the kitchen, he promptly said, “Okay, shut it down” and inspected the thousands of amber droplets hanging from the ceiling. So now, I’m working in the milkhouse kitchen with the fan on and doors open. There’s a reason we boil in the woods. The sap to syrup ratio is 40:1 and all of that water has to go somewhere. At the end of batch 5, we have 72 quarts (18 gallons) of syrup, so we’ve boiled off 2,880 quarts or 720 gallons of water, enough to make it rain.
~Joy
