Northern NH Report

[PerryW]

just talked to one of the guys at Fullers Sugarhouse in Lancaster. They are all tapped out (10,000 i think) but they have not yet boiled or collected any sap. Any sap that runs today or tomorrow, they will let run on the ground.

After tomorrow, the 10-day forecast indicates like no significant sap runs in the Northcountry, however....The prediction is that when it does warm up, it will start running hard due to the lack of deep snow.

Personally, it take me about 2-3 days to be 90% tapped, so I will wait to tap until a couple days before the next stretch of sugar weather.

Good luck to everyone for 2012!

[Russell Lampron]

Good luck to you Perry. I tapped on the 7th and boiled on the 11th. I have only gotten about 200 gals of sap since then and it didn't run as good as I hoped it would today. With the rain and warmer weather it start flowing here tomorrow. The 10 day forecast looks pretty good for here.

[PerryW]

Just checked the other sugarmakers buckets (Littleton area) and they are not running much as of 1:00 PM today (friday). Looks like he hasn't gathered yet since tapping on last Tuesday and some are still empty and a few have about a gallon sap.

[PerryW]

Checked the sugarbush for the first time since fall and spent 6 hours clearing blowdowns and spiffing up my 25 year old tubing setup. Should be all ready to tap now.

Most of the sugarbush still has snow all around the bases of the trees and NE exposure, so I'm not even sure if the trees will wake up with the upcoming thaw predicted on tues-wed-thurs. I may try to wait another week and keep an eye on the forecast.

[PerryW]

I have NOT bored any holes yet but I'm hanging up a bunch of short tubing runs I haven't used in a few years. It's so easy getting around in the woods with 4" hard packed snow that I might as well tap these shorter, less productive runs this year.

Only 34 deg. F here at 2 pm so my trees are still sleeping. Keeping an eye on the weather.

[woodsmith]

planning to tap my bush in Littleton Wednesday the 22nd

[PerryW]

well looks like the weathermen have dropped their temperature predictions over the next three days with tomorrow being a high only 36-38 degrees (Littleton NH area). I may just hold off tapping entirely for a couple days or more and keep an eye on the neighbors buckets.

[PerryW]

well now, the weather men say a high of 37-38 today (after a low of 30 early this morning), then a high of 33-34 Tomorrow and saturday. I may wait another few days or more to tap.

[Mark-NH]

Perry, I don't think you have missed a thing and it should be cold thru the weekend. We haven't had a really good run down here yet. Good luck.

[iron kettle farm]

we tapped on the 11th, got about 250 gal off our 221 taps so far. boiled twice once to sweeten the pans up and another just messing around. made a couple gal so far. Its not running great yet

[PerryW]

Just checked another sugarmaker in Lyman (near littleton) who has been tapped for 10 days. He has 400 good-running field trees and he has only collected 320 gallons as of this morning. He was expecting a good run yesterday but there was very little sap flow. Spent the morning fixing up the last of my tubing repairs and will plan on tapping before the next warm-up.

[PerryW]

Yawn.

4" fresh snow, not getting out of the 20's today, colder tomorrow, single numbers at night. No 40's predicted in the 10-day forecast. Wake me up before the next real thaw. Glad I didn't' bore any holes.

[Birdland Sugarbush]

Tapped last weekend and it never really got running. Even with the cold and windy weather, I got a decent flow between the last two days. Several buckets were full.

Hoping things start really flowing by the middle of the week here in Southern NH.

[PerryW]

snowed another couple-3 inches overnight. Never got above freezing yesterday and snowing & blowing today. Wake me up when spring starts.

[PerryW]

Well it's the last day of february; still a little early for me to tap, but given the expected 8" of snow, I'm gonna go out and drill 75 holes or so (some of my take-down tubing) to avoid having to put on snowshoes. Looks like sap may run by the middle of next week for me.

[PerryW]

Bored 400 holes today, so I'm about 60% tapped. It was running okay while I was boring them, but I don't think it will amount to much. I plan on tapping the rest of them by wednesday for the predicted warmup.

[sjdoyon]

Perry,

We had Dave set us up this past summer with all of our equipment and had a Leader rep come flag out the sugarbush so we could install the pipeline ourselves. Having someone with 30yrs experience who constantly produces over 5 pounds a tap advise us on our operation is money well spent. We had a small run of 1,100 gallons one day end of Feb, only ice chunks in the system to date.

See weather is going to be sunny this week and warm temps Wed/Thursday so things might be turning for us. Of course we have the new two feet of snow to deal with from the last two storms but at least it's not four or five feet.

Good luck on the season.

[PerryW]

Boring my last 300 holes today and getting the last tanks set up. Hopefully things will get started here in the Littleton area by thursday.

[Russell Lampron]

Looks like the warm weather is finally getting here. Hope you have a good season.

[red maples]

Good luck things have been slow down here too still waiting for big sap!!! should behere tomorrow!!!

[OldManMaple]

Big temp difference between my house and sugarbush this morning (six miles away, down by Bodies house). I had Ethan shut the pump off last night as it was slushing up at about 9 0'clock and the moon was full. Looked at the temp this morning it read 53 at the house so I jumped in the car and went to start the pump got down there and it was 31 and it froze up tight. Even the cooling line from the brook had froze solid. Got back to the house and three thermometers and the one in my truck read in the fifties. I need to replace the one @ the sap house as some rodent has chewed the end off of the sending unit. Had an ok run yesterday, only had 24 or so inches of vac, once all thawed, walking the lines today

[PerryW]

just talked to one of the guys at Fullers Sugarhouse in Lancaster. They have no intention of pulling taps. They have 1000 gallons of syrup produced which is about 20% of a full crop.