If at first you don't succeed,...

Last Saturday was a perfect day for boiling sap down.   It was an unusual 55 degrees and sunny.   It was so warm that we actually had to stop collecting sap on most of our trees in the afternoon.   The trees were starting to bud out.

A friend had some carbon steel pans made for us to boil sap in.   They looked good and heavy duty.   So we cleaned them up...

... and built a two block fireplace out where we have bonfires.

We decided to boil some water in them first both to clean them out and to check them for leaks. Good thing we did. Unfortunately there were pinholes in both pans. They were down low enough and leaked enough that we felt that we would be leaking out as much sap as we would be boiling it away.  
So we reluctantly admitted defeat here (until the holes can be welded shut) and went back to the tried and true (and very slow) method of reducing the sap in electric cookers and skillets.   Now it is a race to get the sap processed before it spoils in the warm weather.

But on the plus side, it was warm enough that my dh suggested a picnic.   So I made soup and hot chocolate and put it in thermoses and brought out sandwiches, chips, and apples.    The children loved the fact that we were eating outside in March.   My dh and I just enjoyed sitting in the sun.

Saturday was also Pi Day.   What is Pi Day?   A day to celebrate the usefulness of the mathmatical term of Pi.   Why Saturday?   It was 3/14 of course!   And what better way to celebrate than to eat pie.