It's Beginning To Look An Awful Lot Like Spring

Well, it all started with a phone call I got from Orman Ovitt this mild Tuesday, January 31, 2006 morning. Orman made the announcement that his son Bob Ovitt had been boiling sap this week. Orman said we never have boiled in January before.

Well, this did indeed seem like news the St. Albans Messenger would be interested in, so sent them an e-mail before I went to St. Albans to run some errands. Meanwhile, Orman called back and said Bob was boiling tonight about 5 p.m. So sent another note off to the Messenger and on my way home from St. Albans, decided if I was going to drive up there in the dark, I had better tackle it in the daylight, so drove up, found the sugarhouse and took the photo below. Nothing going on except the equipment running for the new high technology sugaring that removes a lot of the water from the sap through osmosis. Bob told me with the cost of fuel, this certainly was a worthwhile investment:

Meanwhile, Stina Plant from the Messenger sent me a note back she would be out tonight and that Leon Thompson would be coming with her. I went over around 5:45 and they arrived a little after 6 pm. Below, Leon Thompson is shown gathering information from Bob and Orman for an upcoming article:

Stina Plant, meanwhile had gone around and taken a few pictures and is shown below chatting with Orman:

Orman's youngest great grandson stayed pretty close to his great grandfather, so I got the photo of both of them below:

Orman asked me to take a picture of the sugarmakers of the future at the Ovitt sugar orchard, so he is shown below with his son Bob, grandsons Sam, Robbe and Joshua plus his great grandsons:

I'm looking forward to the upcoming article that will appear in the St. Albans Messenger on Sugaring In January up here in Northern Vermont.

A special thanks to Orman for alerting me to this unusual phenonomen.