Pulled the taps today

[Quagmire33]

Well, I pulled my taps today while boiling the last of my sap. Looks like I'm boiling used motor oil. Have about 120 gallons in and expecting about 2 - 2 1/4 gallons from it. Never made dark syrup before. Anyone have preference of use for dark syrup ?

[jeffeich]

I live in NE Iowa and we had a good day, collected about 500 gallons, still clear. Warm weather is coming next week, upper 60's for highs, and low 40's for lows, might be over soon. We made some dark last year and our customers did not like it, so I made maple sugar out of it, which turned out okay. Has to be sad to see the season end, it has been a difficult one here, hope next year is easier or somewhat "normal". I have a shipment of honey bees coming on Friday, need to get ready for them.

460 taps and buckets
2x6 Smoky Lake Evaporator
2 John Deere Gators

[bowtie]

All my dark amber and b syrup still has good flavor not over the top.everything this has been dark amber and a little b. will hopefully get one more run and then pulling taps here in western ny. Very slow year.

[slammer3364]

going to give it this week,pulling everything next Saturday

[cbhansen]

And the funny thing is that I just tapped 3 days ago and the last 2 days it was below freezing. Tomorrow I start boiling. Up in a North Bay, Ontario. Still a good 3 feet of snow in the bush. I expect a short season this years.

[maple flats]

Unless I sell out of it, my dark amber is my best seller, and my B is up real good in sales too. The one I sell very little of is light. While I had sales totaling well over 400 gal, I only sold less than 2 gal total of light. I generally end up blending any light into med. or dark to use it up. Light generally costs me more, because I pack it, then after it sets too long I open those jugs, dump it into whichever darker one I'm packing and blend it, then pack it again. That costs me the extra jugs or bottles.

[Swagner]

Ya I too am done !
I live in Warren and my year is complete. I got not even 2 gallons where as last year I got 5. But thats mother nature. The ones I feel sorry for are the guys who make it a living.I just do it for fun. So a bad year for me means I give out less

[MidMichMaple]

Ya I too am done !
I live in Warren and my year is complete. I got not even 2 gallons where as last year I got 5. But thats mother nature. The ones I feel sorry for are the guys who make it a living.I just do it for fun. So a bad year for me means I give out less

I'm expecting a run tomorrow, and then it's supposed to get warm and stay that way until next week. I will probably wrap everything up on Saturday, even though I could probably hold out for a few late runs next week. Not a hint of buds on my sugars yet.

[Oddmott]

:cry:

Another wonky season. Seems like every time our family spends a ton of time, energy and dollars on getting started or improving our set-up, the weather doesn't hold for a good season.

In central Ontario we've only just started getting above freezing temperatures in the last week... and most days it just rains. We still have 1-2ft of snow around most of our trees.

On 125 taps we've collected just 300 gallons of sap over nearly 3 weeks. I'm afraid it's going to warm up too much, too fast before we even have a real sap run this year.

[Run Forest Run!]

Oddmott, and here we thought that tapping in 2012 for the first time was going to be our biggest challenge..... I wonder if it's possible for maples to never have a 'real' run before budding out?

[maplefool]

What the heck!
I doubled my taps this year In Southwest Wisconsin and may end up with less syrup than last year.
Was last year a great year, or an average year?
Or is this year terrible?

[bowtie]

it was a below average year for most in wny . collected yesterday and dumped most, sugars were mostly clear, got 120 gallons, it will run good today but I doubt I will collect as my sugars and blacks are very spread out. I will boil down tonight and finish off by Thursday. then pull taps, was hoping to pull today but no time, will have to wait until Friday. not disappointed with season just not what I expected.

[MarkNB]

Much the same here in eastern Canada, New Brunswick. Last year was our first year, only seven taps and a late start, and if I hadn't burnt a batch we would've had a full gallon of really nice light syrup instead of 3/4 of a gallon. This year, started with 30 taps and buckets a month ago, but winter just wouldn't let go. Was only getting about 5gal a week for the first few, thankfully old man winter kept it frozen for us. First boil last weekend was about 40gal of sap, ended up with 1.25gal of syrup, quite a bit darker than last year. And now this week its all warm temps and rain. All my trees (all red maple) are down at the bottom of my property, and I'm having to keep my eye on the river to make sure my buckets don't float away.

I think the people in higher elevations are having better luck.