March 14, 2009

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NEWS |

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Kings back in the thick of it, as playoff series tied at 2-2.............................»14 THE OBSERVER | Saturday, March 07, 2009

Trying something new on for size

»11 VOLUME 14, ISSUE 09

SATURDAY, MARCH 07, 2009

www.ObserverXtra.com

hockeyville title for Woolwich?

After four-day flurry of voting, township waits for the final tally tonight

PHOTO | JONI MILTENBURG

JONI MILTENBURG

COUNTDOWN TO EMSF Kitchener Conestoga MPP Leeanna Pendergast gets a sample of maple sap fresh from the tree, as Albert Martin and Woolwich Mayor Bill Strauss look on. The weather was warm enough during the annual tree-drilling ceremony Feb. 27 for the sap to run freely. More warm weather this weekend will have maple syrup producers busy boiling. The Elmira Maple Syrup Festival is set for Apr. 4.

Sap ready to flow for syrup season JONI MILTENBURG With Environment Canada forecasting temperatures in the double digits for this weekend, maple syrup producers are champing at the bit to get boiling. On Wednesday, Fred Martin of West Montrose Maple Products was busy tapping the last trees, setting up tanks and checking the evaporator. “It’s getting down to the wire now,” he said. “This weekend’s looking pretty promising.” Martin already had some sap running the last few days of February. That brief spell of warm weather coincided with the annual tree-tapping

ceremony for the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival. Unlike the past few years, when the ceremony took place in biting cold, this year’s tapping produced a steady flow of sap. Most producers don’t bother tapping for warm spells in January and February, said Todd Leuty, agroforestry technician with the Ontario Ministry of Food and Rural Affairs. Taps have a lifespan of only five or six weeks, after which the tap hole dries out. Producers try to time their tapping to get the best flows. “The biggest fear is if they go too early, they miss out on some of the best flows at the end of March and even early April,” Leuty said. “The first sap

tends to be lower in sugar than the good stuff later on, so you get into an economic question there, is it really worth it to process sap that’s fairly low in sugar?” Leuty said many of the producers he’s talked to were waiting out the cold spell earlier this week to do their tapping. The danger in tapping when it’s too cold is that the wood around the tap can split, ruining the flow out of the spout. There are just over 3,000 producers in Ontario, producing 1.1 million litres of syrup annually. Producers are hoping for a good season this year, to make up for a few See SAP page 02

After putting themselves at risk of repetitive strain injuries for four days, Woolwich residents will find out tonight (Saturday) if their fast and furious voting has netted them the Hockeyville title. The winning community will be announced during CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. Woolwich’s Hockeyville committee is inviting everyone to an announcement party in the youth centre on the upper level of the Elmira Arena at 9 p.m. The voting station with 44 computers on loan from Reality Bytes will make way for a big-screen television. CBC camera crews will be on hand to capture the crowd’s reaction if Woolwich is victorious. Votes poured in in such numbers that CBC’s systems strained to keep up. People phoning their votes in had trouble getting through, and confirmation to voters using text messaging was delayed. Online voting was extended See HOCKEYVILLE page 02

EVERY VOTE COUNTS Travis and Teesha Weber were busy voting with other minor hockey families at the Elmira Arena Mar. 3.

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March 14, 2009 by Woolwich Observer - Issuu