First Tap

[Friar_Athanasius]

I put in my first 14 taps today & 45 more tomorrow.

[ehausinfrats]

i put in 4 taps Saturday and there was no sap running. Even the shavings were dry. Did you see any sap runs yet?

Eric

[Friar_Athanasius]

Yes, the shavings were wet and and got sprayed in the face when I hammered in the spile.

[ehausinfrats]

Sweeeet!

Eric

[user587]

Tapped 200 Sat. 2/13 - a few weepers. Tapped 75 more Sunday 2:00, 10% were wet before the tap went in. Found the swamp trees a bit wetter, the swamp has water under the snow. Forgot to check in the eve. before dark (too busy getting the evap cleaned!)

Waiting on some more taps that do not have much direct sun and are on well-drained hillsides.

[Friar_Athanasius]

One tree has already given 2 gallons of sap in 24 hours...

[user587]

As of Monday pm, some of our sap sacs have maybe 1/2 gallon, but most are dry or barely wet.

Hard freeze tonight, sun tomorrow, we'll see what happens.

[gleasondaddy]

I tapped sunday and had more wet holes then dry. Put in about 25 taps.

[emu742]

Did my first tap yesterday and already have 2 gallons in 24 hours time. I counted it dripping about 42 drips/minute yesterday. Checked today and its 67/minute. How cool!

[user587]

Collected 32 gal. from 200 taps in the swamp today (wed). Approx. 1/4 of taps were dry.

[toquin]

This is the earliest and warmest we have ever tapped. The tubing was fine but the buckets,in older trees, looked pretty funky.

[firetech]

I've set about 250 taps not one wet hole and the extended forcast has turned south for temps in the next 2 weeks. But I'll just keep on putting up the roadside tubing and hold off on the tapping.

[xyz5150]

Herb,
That makes me feel better since i haven't tapped yet. The last few days acted more like a January thaw than the real deal.

[firetech]

Darn wind empty 5gal buckets can go a long wayyyyyyyyyyyy. Put bricks on some wired some to the tree. Maybe 5 gals of sap in the 75 buckets I checked today.

[Friar_Athanasius]

52 gallons of sap from 60 trees in six days. I will be cooking the first batch tomorrow, I can't wait.

[Friar_Athanasius]

I just finished boiling our first 52 gallons of sap (gathered between last Sunday and Friday) and got 3/4 gallon of grade A dark amber. I am liking this very much.