South east ontario tapping

[Yellzee]

Go team, dig deep you can do it!!! Show that Canuck spirit.
Heading for the end zone here. Almost all the sap in the pan and going to let the fire die down to get most of the sweet out.

Then a day or two with the turkey pot to finish off. I think i will be very close to litre per tap and thats with a third of them only put in March 23.

I have to say i have never been this worn out at the end of a season before. Seems like 4-5 weeks with almost no days off.

[Run Forest Run!]

I have to say i have never been this worn out at the end of a season before. Seems like 4-5 weeks with almost no days off.

You and me both Yellzee. Boiling my brains out over here.

[Galena]

My run has been way less consistent than Run Forest Run's and Yellzee's, but boiling down my last batch like crazy as Kyle Baker kindly offered me 25 gallons of sugar maple sap...so making a little road trip tomorrow morning to try and take at least 16 gallons of it! Then boiling like absolute mad to get the sap at least on its way to syrup before it turns.

Yep, once I'm done boiling my life can resume its normal boring course...but during tapping season...don't come between me and my shiny object!! LOL!!

[markr]

Hey Galena I wish I head of known you were looking for sap I bet we poured out 100 gallons when we were pulling out buckets I'll make sure I ask next year

[can'twaitforabigrun]

I headed out to Alberta to work for the summer this past weekend, but wish I was back home making syrup. There is still 1-2 feet of snow in the bush up around Bancroft and the Renfrew County area, especially on the north facing slopes. The trees only really started to run this past wkd., before that there was only 2-3 small runs and lots of cold weather. From what i hear from the folks back home it's too warm today for the sap to run, and the forecast is then looking too cold Thurs. and Fri. with highs of 2-3 above zero. I would caution anyone north of 7 from pulling their taps yet if they're still making good tasting syrup and their bush isn't facing south. Looks like there could be a crazy spring snow storm at the end of this week. What the old timers like to call a sugar snow as it comes near the end of the season and helps prolong the season. Envr. Canada recently issued winter storm watches for around the GTA and a special weather statement for all of southern Ontario indicating the potential for significant snowfall for eastern parts of the province. The weather network is forecasting 20+cm for Peterborough and up towards Bancroft and around 10cm for the Ottawa area. Right now I'm predicting one last big run for this Fri. through to Sunday. I've seen the sap run gangbusters before in the midst of poring rain and heavy wet snow.

[Chasinthedream]

With respect to the sap turning, I have 185taps in and collect into a 200gallon tank on the loader. Next year I'm going with vacuum if I can afford it. I collected 285gallons last saturday in two runs between boils. What a weekend! I need to figure out what to dump when I'm at the tree if it has turned, otherwise I could ruin 150 gallons with 1 gallon.
The weather turn is great news, if you have the energy physically and wood too. I was golfing for the last month last year and now I'm boiling for a month. What was I thinking? Boiled off 100gallons after work last night, I have about 44gallons finished this year. I liked the team spirit cheer, one last big run, yeah!
Ennis Maple, I'd really like to stop by in the off-season to have a look at your operation. Sounds amazing.

[Galena]

Hey Galena I wish I head of known you were looking for sap I bet we poured out 100 gallons when we were pulling out buckets I'll make sure I ask next year

Good to hear from you Mark, and ah well, there's always next year...and yep I did pick up about 16g sap from Kyle Baker's place, and as I still have snow on the north side of my house from where it slid off during the winter, I dug pits and put three of the 4 pails in and piled up snow around em. Hopefully those little snow bunkers will hold and not melt before the big storm predicted for Friday!

So finishing off the last pot of my own sap and got a pot of Kyle's on right now, just to get it started. And pulled my spiles today, only drips left in the pails all around. The trees all gave a good run this year, no complaints.

[ennismaple]

We're getting some sap today but mostly from one woods that is north facing and still has snow on the ground. With it getting cold tomorrow and Friday we'll hold off until Saturday to fire up the RO and boil it through. One last kick at the can before the fat lady sings!

This season has been unusual - but most are in some way. What's been different are the number of times the sap has run. Other than the freezups we've had the sap never really stopped running. It was a lot of weeping flows, meaning we needed to boil every second day for the last 5 weeks. We normally have half a dozen days where we make 100+ gallons of syrup. This year we've had only 2. Since cleanup and startup takes the same effort no matter how much syrup we make this means we've spent a lot more physical energy workign around the camp than in previous years. I can't complain too much because the quanity and quality of the syrup has been good.

[Yellzee]

Ok, sweet is bottled. Final tally of 153.5 litres from approx. 160 taps. Im sure sap would still be good this weekend but we are done!

Biggest year ever for us (most taps). Now to find an outlet for all this syrup.

Ennis, if you are running this weekend and its too crappy to wok outside Saturday you may have a surprise visitor.

[Kyle Baker]

Galena, after you took what you could from my stash I decided whatever was left should be boiled so I'm at it again to finish my very last small batch of the year. Glad I could help you out!



Good to hear from you Mark, and ah well, there's always next year...and yep I did pick up about 16g sap from Kyle Baker's place, and as I still have snow on the north side of my house from where it slid off during the winter, I dug pits and put three of the 4 pails in and piled up snow around em. Hopefully those little snow bunkers will hold and not melt before the big storm predicted for Friday!

So finishing off the last pot of my own sap and got a pot of Kyle's on right now, just to get it started. And pulled my spiles today, only drips left in the pails all around. The trees all gave a good run this year, no complaints.

[Bruce L]

Marty,what percentage crop do you figure you came out with?

[Run Forest Run!]

The ice storm has got the trees running again - especially the box elders. I have to ignore that fact though, as I'm in the middle of cleaning up all of my sugaring stuff for the season. The trees win this one.

[Run Forest Run!]

As I am in the middle of cleaning up my supplies for the season, today I will know the anguish of dumping overflowing pails, jugs and buckets. From my kitchen window, I can see them dripping sap onto the ground and the containers full to their brims. Bittersweet indeed! What a great year I've had playing outside with the trees.

[MustardSeedMum]

You and me both, Karen! I left a few buckets up where I can see them from my front window. The trees have been gushing. Sigh. But we finished with 50L. Definitely a good year for us.

[Run Forest Run!]

I got some of the buckets down today and will pull the rest tomorrow. They were all full with crystal clear sap. It just felt so wrong to dump them. 50L is a lot of syrup MustardSeedMum, what do you do with all of it?

[MustardSeedMum]

Karen, this is the first year we've made this much! Never had this problem before. :) I like to have some as gifts. But perhaps this year we'll consider selling some to friends who are interested.

[Run Forest Run!]

Karen, this is the first year we've made this much! Never had this problem before. :) I like to have some as gifts. But perhaps this year we'll consider selling some to friends who are interested.

That's what I may do as well. Most of my "syrup-worthy" friends have already shared in this year's harvest, and I might see if I can recover some of my propane costs if anyone is interested in buying any extra. I've already had one person ask. Congrats on such a good year MSM.

[Asthepotthickens]

That's what I may do as well. Most of my "syrup-worthy" friends have already shared in this year's harvest, and I might see if I can recover some of my propane costs if anyone is interested in buying any extra. I've already had one person ask. Congrats on such a good year MSM.

Love your new picture

[RyanB]

Yeah, tree's are running like never before here in the Arthur area as well after the storm and our temps barely got above 2 degree's today! Looks like its going to be a crazy day tomorrow also with the temps well above freezing! I will probably pull the taps come Monday and tap a bunch of my birch tree's and try that out. I am currently up to 65L of syrup from our 85 taps and have 165gallons ready for boiling and will have probably double that after tomorrow so I will deffinatly be over 1L per tap this year! not to bad for buckets!
Overall I am pretty impressed with the 2x4 evaporator this year...we converted it to AOF and AUF with a serious amount of air (1200cfm) and was pulling almost 18gph with dry maple and the new hood and preheater and best off all we only used just over 2 face cord with 1/2 hour burn times.
Looks like I am going all out next year and putting the whole bush (aprox 620 taps) on high vac so it looks like the little arch will be hitting kijiji soon and a new arch being built shortly in the shop!
Glad everyone else has been having a great year also!

Ryan

[SPM in King]

Yes, a good year after all! I dumped 100L the other day and I have 200L more to dump (crying). Too bad, but you can be crazy and over do it with the helpers. 87L of syrup on 104 taps. Not sure what we will do with it all anyway. I still have 2011 and 2012 in the cold room!

Have a great year everyone!

Steve.

[Run Forest Run!]

I feel your pain Steve. I was dumping full buckets and jugs as I removed them from the trees today and yesterday. That really hurt, but I've got enough syrup and it's time to move on to new projects. Congratulations on a great haul this year!

[ennismaple]

Marty,what percentage crop do you figure you came out with?

Bruce - We ended up with 1.2L syrup per tap. We could have made more but Saturday's sap was very cloudy (we dumped some) and the syrup was very dark and strong. With no bulk buyers to speak of there's no point in making syrup was can retail ourselves.

You?

[Bruce L]

hi Marty,I figure we are in the 1.1 range,not really sure,but we are quite happy with all the problems we had starting up,late start getting the pump going,tubing damage etc.

[Yellzee]

Pulling taps yesterday and the sap was running decent. Tasted the sap to see id i ciuld detect the "buddy" flavor and all I can say is it had some taste where normally i would say it has none? Heavy frost last night so likely more to run on the ground today

[Galena]

*sigh* dang, when I win the lottery I'm gonna get me a helicopter and a Bambi bucket and fly around to all you who're dumping out sap and bring it home!!!

But I'm out of firewood now and already put 90% of my cleaned-up gear away. Ah well. Still have a few pails out there on OctoMom, got about 3l Manitoba maple sap and made about 30ml syrup :-) Have to pull the spiles tonight though.

BTW I have a few pics of a really weird tree in the corner of my lot. Going by the bark it's a birch of some sort, but looks nothing like 99% of all other birches I've seen!! I think it's a birch that wants to be a maple, it's huge and gnarly, branches going off in all directions. See my linky at bottom of signature.

[ennismaple]

The sap was running down the tree yesterday as we pulled the taps. There's no way I've have considered boiling it because the buds are clearly out on the trees and what sap came out of the lines looked and smelled like sour milk!

We got all the taps pulled in 2 days and I estimate I handled 400 gallons of water in 10 gallon increments to flush out the mainlines. We didn't suck any water through the lateral lines this year so it'll be interesting to see how much crud comes out of them next year.

We only have a few tanks and releasers to wash next weekend before we walk away from the sugar camp for a month. Where did I put my golf clubs...

[Chasinthedream]

I pulled everything last Thursday. Finished 1.2L/tap as well. Now have to finish packaging. Where does everybody buy their bottles?

[ennismaple]

I pulled everything last Thursday. Finished 1.2L/tap as well. Now have to finish packaging. Where does everybody buy their bottles?

A lot of feed and seeds have bottles at this time of year. Even Canadian Tire in Perth has them in stock in March and April. I'm not sure who carries stuff near Brighton. Atkinsons Maple Syrup Supplies near Orillia will ship containers to you if there's nowhere local.

We get most of our containers from Springdale Farms (the Dodds family).

[can'twaitforabigrun]

We had our best run of the season yesterday up in Griffith, just north of calabogie. Collected over 700 gallons off of approx. 350 taps. We have droplines going into 5 gal pails, most of them with 2-4 lines to one pail were overflowing! We only had two guys up at the bush to gather and it took them from 3-9 pm, got to install some lines. Some of it may have been from Sunday, since we didn't collect as it was too cold for it to run well, it didn't start to run till after 3pm. The bush is on a north east facing slope at quite high elevation. The temp. Early yesterday morning was -8 to -10. I read someplace that for every 100 ft you have in elevation is equivalent to moving your bush x number of kilometers north.

[Yellzee]

I pulled everything last Thursday. Finished 1.2L/tap as well. Now have to finish packaging. Where does everybody buy their bottles?

Get mine from squirrel creek farms in Bailieborough which is not far up hwy 28 on the way to Peterborough. The also had some in Foxboro at the farm supply.

[Bruce L]

Finally finished washing all the tubing tonight,been snowing ,raining and too cold most of the time.The old sap that came out of the lines smelled just like vinegar,and I took several unwanted baths of the stuff when I pulled some of the higher check valves.Just done in time to go down to Vermont to the open houses.

[Chasinthedream]

I grew up in Beachburg, Douglas is not far away. I thought it might still be cold there.
I got 285gallons one day 3 weeks ago on 185 taps.

[Chasinthedream]

I met Dave at Squirrel Creek last weekend - nice guy. He's having a demo day with Lapierre June 22. focus on vacuum systems.

Get mine from squirrel creek farms in Bailieborough which is not far up hwy 28 on the way to Peterborough. The also had some in Foxboro at the farm supply.

[cavanmaple]

Dave is my local dealer, Squirrel Creek/Lapierre is a great dealership. Have bought everything through these guys, great products and service. Cannot say enough...