'06 Ended

[Tube-tamer II]

We pulled our 30 buckets Tuesday night, and our 325 tubing spouts on Thursday night. Started making "B" so time to quit. Also the trees began budding. We made 40 gals., about 7 gals. better than last year. Not a year to brag about. Now for the cleanup and start getting ready for next year.

[sapman]

I'm thinking we are done, too. We ended with just over 200 gallons on about 570 taps, which was my goal, so feel pretty good about it. We made 1/3 crop in two days last weekend! The peepers have been going for about 4 days now, but the weather looks good a couple more times this week. Probably just a teaser to keep things up a little longer.

This was definitely our best season in 3 or 4 years.

Tim

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Tim,

Are you running vaccum??

[sapman]

Brandon,

No vaccuum here. All but 40 taps are buckets. But these are almost all roadside trees, with a share of "Old Fathfuls" that will have 2-3 full 15 quart buckets a good deal of the time.

Tim

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Can't beat buckets and roadsides on top of that, no wonder you had such a great year! :D

[maple flats]

My season is also over. Haven't finished off what is in the evap yet but my season was below expectations somewhat. Don't even have a good count on what was made yet because my daughter canned a couple of batches when I was collecting sap and did not keep track as requested. I will need to get a final count on containers left over and compare it with starting count to calculate it. Right now I only feel I am down about 30-40% from my expected 75 gal. I will find out this week for sure. I had to pull all Reds and Silvers last Thurs as the buds grew rapidly and some popped late thurs. Then Friday at 75 degrees the sugars on roadside did the same and Over the weekend my sugars in the woods almost all followed suit. I usually had more time extention on the deep woods sugars but the high temps put that out the window. I am only about 55 miles from Fulton but my weather is not tempered by lake Ontario like his is. At least I did get more per tap than last year. Still not up to 03 or 04 on a per tap basis.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I am amazed how fast the sugars bud up north. Down here we have had a lot more warm weather since Jan 1st and the sugars haven't budded yet. :?

[Dropflue]

I pulled the taps yesterday. Finished boiling what was left in the syrup pan yesterday also. I can't complain with this years yield. I bottled a total of 33 gallons from 127 taps on buckets. I made 50% of my crop last week Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.