Tapped in Monson 2014

[MapLewis]

Hey everyone,

Finally, we started tapping this week (latest tapping ever for us)... Hoping to have 150 in before the warm up this weekend.

Running a few new gravity tubing lines this year… 250+ buckets takes WAY too long to collect.

Looks like everyone in the Wilbraham/Hamden area is off & running as well. Lets hope Mother Nature cooperates and gives our area a gradual thaw over 6 weeks!

Shack is always open to visitors!

Good luck everyone.

[MapLewis]

We got over 200 taps in as of today…perfect timing. Most of the South facing taps were running well today & yesterday.
Collected 125 gallons tonight and boiled it all off to sweeten the pans. The maple steam is absolute heaven.
Hope everyone got a descent run this weekend…this upcoming week looks pretty good too.
Here we go!
Bryon

[WESTMAPLES]

yeah the weather is looking up, now we just have to ride it out. maplewis buckets are a lot of work , tubing is worth the time to setup right and take care of it. it pays off in the long run being able to focus more time on adding more taps and add production, not get more time dumping buckets. ive done tubing from the start learning along the way, i do still put out a few buckets in small hot spot that are out of reach for tubing or across the street. good luck and hope we don`t get to buried in snow again

[MapLewis]

Finally a good run here yesterday… 275 gallons collected on about 300 taps. This season has been sporadic (but manageable) in terms of sap flow. We have been able to boil all of our sap within a 24-36hrs. The sap content has been 2% and above this year.
We are close to the 25 gallon mark for syrup production this year… made a bunch more light & med compared to last few years. I attribute this to the quick processing of sap.
Ran our new/used Lapierre filter press yesterday… wow does that make CLEAR syrup easy. We used to filter at draw off & then before bottling..this is WAY easier, gets ALL the niter. I like cleaning hoses vs filters now. Thank you Jim Desjardins.
So far, so good..the 10 day weather looks ok..going to need a little help from Mother Nature, a few degrees here there will make the difference.
Happy boiling.
Bryon

[WESTMAPLES]

map lewis good to hear things are going well for you too. small runs have been keeping me going so far, waiting for the great runs to hit. jim is a great guy I bought his 1 and 2 handed tubing tools, and 2 tanks from him when he decided to sell earlier this year. I like taking a few mins for setup and cleanup of my filter press vs using cone filters. boy is it a real hassel saver when it comes to filtering 20 gals at a time, its money well spent. good luck