Weekly Mileage #98 and the Propane Burner

Monday's hike was cold but clear and sunny

We had some cold weather when the polar vortex went through, but we definitely didn't get the brunt of it. However, within a few days the weather had warmed up and it was in the mid-70s on Tuesday! By the weekend it was back below freezing at night and in the 30s and 40s during the day, but wow, such crazy weather.



The warmer temps meant that some of my sap spoiled. I had to dump three gallons because it was too cloudy. On the other hand, we've collected about 42 gallons total this year, which is much more than we've collected any other year. Putting the tubing in is allowing us to take advantage of the optimal tapping weather while keeping the holes open for a longer collection period.

I broke out our propane burner that we used for scalding chickens when processing them for the freezer. It's not super efficient- it takes about half the propane tank and about 9 hours or so to boil down 5 gallons of sap, but I don't have to do anything- I don't have to constantly stoke the fire, I don't smell like smoke the whole day, and I don't get a headache from the smoke and fumes. Since I needed to get a lot of work done (best done when I don't have a headache), this was a good option.

At one point this past week we thought we were going to have to replace our water heater because it had stopped working. Our house is about 22 years old and all the original fixtures are starting to fail- we had to replace our heating and air conditioning unit and our well pump a year and a half ago, and they said to expect our water heater to go in the near future.

When Mr M took a look at it, it was connected to an electrical box owned by our electric co-op. After contacting them, it appears that once upon a time it was installed as a shutoff in times of high electrical usage (which is silly, since the only time our area has high electrical use is on really hot days in the summer when everyone runs their a/c full blast). Anyway, because the box is connected to our water heater, they're responsible for fixing (but not replacing) our water heater. So a guy came out and looked at it and replaced one of the heating elements and we have hot water again! He tried to replace the other <still working> element, but couldn't get it to loosen. So when that one decides to give up the ghost, we really will have to replace the water heater. In the meantime, it's nice to have a reprieve.

I've been super busy trying to get my final projects finished (I talked about them in this post), gather tax info, and prepare the presentations for two more of my Wood Badge ticket items. So I only managed one hike and no other workouts this week.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 2.25 miles hiked
total- 2.25 miles

5 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

10.55 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
4.45 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
30.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
45.0 miles total