Shaftsbury Sugarworks 2011

[Brokermike]

Took yesterday afternoon off and started tapping at around 3:00pm. I finished 200 taps at 6:30. It was brutally slow going in 24" of crusted over snow. My fat VT body doesn't exactly float over the snow, and my snowshoes haven't returned home after being borrowed. Amazingly, in the balmy 13 degree temps sone of the south facing red maples were running as I tapped

Vac pump and releaser are hooked up and running at 21".

Several weeks to go for the buckets

[PARKER MAPLE]

Hey brokermike,
glad to see you are up and opperational. you must have a good sugarbush its running early. mines high in elevation, i started tapping again yesterday and bit was wet but nothing to get excited about. good luck

Maple Rookie

[Brokermike]

sap barely ran yesterday.

Spent most of the night fixing leaks. **** tree rats chewed tubing nearly in half! Shot four of the bastards this morning as they ran down my lines when i was fixing the big chew they had yesterday! I still have a few mystery leaks, 21" at the pump and 17" at the releaser with both main lines open. Each line must have the same identical seepage because if I shut one off it stays at 17", close them both and the releaser shows 21" just like the pump (they are about 500' apart).

Hopefully we'll get a real run today!

[Brokermike]

nice sap run overnight on vacuum. Fixed leaks last night and got the woods to 20" everywhere. Only losing about 1" of vac somewhere but I can't worry about that, could just be the guage.

We'll be boiling hard and fast tonight. At this pace I'll have around 300 gallons of sap from 175 taps in a 36 hour period. We've got about 180 right now and it is running HARD at 6:30 this morning. Trees are really starting to thaw.

Considering how early we are, and nobody around me is boiling yet. I'm looking forward to tonight!!!