steaming drill bits in Andover, NH

[tuckermtn]

tapped 160 taps on mainline, 20 tubing/totes, and 20+ buckets today all but a few were running well...dripping well before I could get the taps in the hole

still have another 30 taps on mainline + another 20 tubing/totes to get set up and as many buckets as I care to do...probably another 50-60. Hopefully tomorrow...

first boil on Friday?

-tuckermtn

[Parker]

Eric- let me know if you want some sap,,I am sure I will have some but not enough to boil,,,hoit road was running pretty well yesterday,,on the ground

[tuckermtn]

Parker- if you do find yourself with not enough to boil let me know- I'm not sure how much this slightly bigger evap willl need to get started, but I'm guessing 200-300 gals on hand would be nice...I'm check my totoes and tanks this afternoon and see where I'm at...

-eric

[Parker]

Eric-I will be finishing in Hill today and trying to start on Rte.11 befor we get all this snow---if you want put a tank or barrell or juice drum under the hoit road line,,I wont have time to get there till sat at least you are welcome to the sap till then if you want,,I have a couple of metel gathering tanks you could use at my sugarhouse if you wanted,,,Parker

[tuckermtn]

gathered 125 gals this afternoon-roadsides were running well, sugarbush still thawing out- barely ran at all today. Sap should be sweeter as we chucked a bunch of ice...will test in the AM

planning on boiling tomorrow morning on new (new to me) 2.5 X 8. may not get to draw off but it'll atleast sweeten the pans..

Parker- depending on the weather I may shoot over in the AM and put a tank under Hoit...not sure if its going to run much with the forcast.

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

collected 175 gals this afternoon...not as much of a run here as hoped...only 2% sap...and a lot of sugar sand...anyone else noticing increased sand this year?

was able to push through 150 gals tonight in a little more than three hrs...would have taken me 6+ on the old 2 X 6...

good forcast for tomorrow and its supposed to get into the low 20's here tonight

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

200 gallons of sap by early evening...still waiting for my main sugarbush to let go..only 45-50 gals from 130 taps. rest of the buckets and totes ave. one gal per tap per 24 hrs.


syrup sitting in canner, will bottle tomorrow...seems dark...lots of clogged filters and pre filters.

burning KD white pine scraps for the end of the boil fueling..saved my butt tonight as I ran out of sap and thankfully almost no coals.

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

gathered 160-170 gallons last evening (tuesday)- buckets still ave 1 gal per or a little better...had first overflowing buckets yesterday. Didn't freeze last night.

bottled 6.75 gal of light amber last night, have 2.5 still in canner. for all the sugar sand, was surprised with the grade.

off to Swanton Vt to pick up round bottom tank I got throught the mapleguys.

don't anticipate much of a run today- supposed to be 60 and chance of t-storms.

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

gathered yesterday most of the leftovers from Tuesday/Wednesday run....approx 100 gallons. Sap was a little cloudy, but its in the evaporator now...

set up the new roundbottom feed tank from mapleguys...all I can say is what took me so long! being able to get every last drop of sap into the evap is so much nicer than fussing with tilting and twisting a stock tank and never getting it all out.

bottled up 4.5 gal of light amber.

looks like the forcast has it cold till thursday/friday of next week...

-tuckermtn

[hard maple]

tucker
I've got 2 of those round bottom s.s. tanks, will never own another stock tank again!!

[tuckermtn]

set the vacuum system up on Monday and gave it a shot...about 4 hrs later the landower called and the said the pump was making an awful noise and it had tripped the breaker...spent yesterday morning switching pump motors (old 1/3Hp elect. motor) and then looking for leaks. Most the little sapsucker was able to pull was about 5"...but some vacuum is better than no vacuum.

the strnagest thing about yesterday was that it was 37-38 deg out and blowing 20-30 mph but the sap was running like crazy...

150+/- gallons of 2.5% sap thought the evap. by 11:30pm. didn't get to 100 of the roadside buckets...will check this afternoon.

seems like it might run today...but yesterday proves that you never know...

thanks to Parker for all his vacuum help...

-tuckermtn

[Parker]

I cant be that much help if your pulling 5" :)........I was wondering if you could run another line up into the woods to transfer more vacuum to the taps?? Good luck, looks like we will be busy for a littel bit,,,,,

[tuckermtn]

got to about 60 deg this afternoon so I was thinking the trees were going to shut down...but I was wrong once again...started gathering at 4:30pm and most of the buckets that I had emptied last night had between 2 and 2.5 gal. each. best run of the year to date...

450 gallons total with everything still running- boiled off 150 tonight and am planning on stockpiling some sap for the open house weekend.

hope everyone else got slammed as well as I did...

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

Gathered 300 gallons on Thursday afternoon and another 200+ yesterday afternoon...I had some buckets that were emptied at 7pm on thrusday and by 6pm friday had 4 gallons in them. Got pretty warm in the afternoon and only about 1/2 of the taps were still running.

Made 6 gal of light amber thursday but I would guess fridays is going to be darker- the sap we got thursday afternoon was getting cloudy by friday 2pm when we fired up.

today is supposed to be perfect sugaring weather (got down to 25 here last night) , but we have been having really good runs on less than ideal days its hard to tell.

Our first shot at an open house for Maple Weekend...hopefully all goes well. we'll run the evap. at less than full tilt to make the sap last longer...have only about 220 gallons in reserve..

good luck to all

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

Maple weekend seemed to work out pretty well for us...seemed like half of the folks were friends, the other have off the street. I think our total was 135 vitistors- more on saturday than sunday.

Sap ran prettwell Saturday, but almost not at all on sunday...

boiled each day from 11am till around 4, at about 3/4 fire. Syrup seems darker with the longer fireing.

I think our season total so far is 28 gal, plus about 6-7 gallons in the finisher now...

need to go out antd tweak the sapsucker to try nad get the most out of these upcoming runs.

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

Sap ran better than expected for us today...got the sapsucker running around 9:30am ish...overcast, rain and 38-39 deg. gathered 165 +/- but lost 20gal because we forgot to close the valve in the bulk tank after washing it yesterday...felt like an idiot...

heading out to bottle sundays boil and get geared up for Vickie Smith from the state dept of Ag coming over in the morning...

not supposed to get below freezing till wednesday night so well see what happens to the sap quality...

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

Sap ran well yesterday and was running a bit today. No run Wednesday, Gathered 200 gal this morning and boiled it all throught...had my daughter's pre-school here for a tour in the am. nice to have some sap to show then something. Getting more cloudy sap, but still making dark amber so I'll keep at it.

cleaned front pan and tanks today...shame there is no market for niter since I must have pulled a few pounds off my front pan...

season total is 45 gal...hoping to make 55+ with some grade B in the coming
days...

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

Gathered late in the day yesterday- had about 225 gal...woods trees are doing better than the roadsides- will probably pull some roadsides today depending on if we get a run or not...got down to about 26 here last night supposed to be 50 and no wind here today..

canned another 2.75 gal of dark...have about 4 gal sitting in canner

sap is running about 1.8-2.0 so no complaints..


my goal is to be boiling while listing to opening day of the Red Sox season...might actually happen this year...

best of luck...

-tuckermtn

[Parker]

Eric- Thought I could see you boiling from Rte.11 as I was collecting yesterday?? Have been lucky enough to catch the sox playing in florida a couple of time this season from the sugarhouse,,,,get a good run yesterday?

[tuckermtn]

Got a decent run- 200 gal- yesterday (sunday) and fired up the evaporator at 6:30pm...some roadsides were in the 1.5 to 2 gal per 24 hr. Parker- I should look sometime, but I think you probably can just see the sugarhouse as you round the turn on Rt. 11 by Henderson's yellow house...

Was surprised that the sugarbush on sapsucker didn't really produce as much as I expected..will consider a real vac (Delaval or Surge?) for next year. move the sapsucker over to our smaller bush next year...

haven't graded most recent batch of syrup yet, but planning on firing up the canner while listening to Joe and Jerry on WEEI tonight for for first time since October...Red Sox Maple Nation...maybee I should move to the NEK of Vt so I could catch more Sox games during sugaring season.

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

My bad- opening day is a day game for the Sox...sounds like it was a game worth missing of your a sox fan...

no run here today...might get one last push as it gets cold then warms up later this week...

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

had a good solid run today- 210 +/- gal. sap is running 1.5% to 1.7%. Seems like that West wind does the trick...some of the northfacing buckets still producing good clear sap. rest are getting cloudy but not too bad.

didn't quite get it all throught the evap tonight but would guess we might get another run tomorrow. 10 day forcast still looks good. Will pull some of my buckets over the weekend, but better than half of them are still cranking out the sap...and they were tapped the 25th of Feburary.

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

gathered yesterday afternoon and actually had to chuck ice out of my buckets..on April 7th- go figure.

165 ish gallons...sugar was back up to close to 2%..

just checked a few more buckets this afternoon and I bet we have about the same as yesterday.

getting low on wood, but will scrounge around to light the fires tonight. Need to go to the sawmill for the KD pine scraps...

Sox on sunday night baseball...

off to gather...

-tuckermtn

[Parker]

Papelbon is the man

[tuckermtn]

Parker- Yes- Paplebon is the man...I thought we were going to wake up the neighbors we were hooting so loud in the sugarhouse after he struck out the last Texas batter..

gathered 145 gal this evening...the East Andover sap was cloudy but 2%- the stuff from over near Bradley Lake in Andover was very clear but only about 1.3%- go figure.

canned up 10 more gallons of dark A. our season total is around 70 gals, or about 0.2 gal of syrup per tap. I know its not stellar, but that is the best ratio we've had...

looks like it might keep running this week..

[tuckermtn]

had a very good 24 hr run- 220 gal and of that 130 was 2% the rest was 1.6.

a couple of buckets had 3+ gallons in them in less than 24 hrs.

haven't done the final finishing and filtering, but the initial grading looks like we might be back to medium amber with a nice taste...the medium we made earier this season seemed to lack any good flavor.

Was it Scott (powerdub) who predicted we might finish the year with light? Not there yet, but I'm liking that prediction...

best of luck to all who are hanging in there...

-tuckermtn

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

I don't know how light I'll get back to, but I've only made 5 gals. of B and now it's heading back up the scale.

[tuckermtn]

300+ gallons of pretty reasonible sap today...still getting about 2% and 1.5%.
Made medium amber but has a bit of a funky taste...off to wholesale...

Traded 5 gal of dark at Bascoms for some supplies and some cash.

we may have to call it pretty soon unless we find some more wood...

best of luck to all..

-tuckermtn

[Russell Lampron]

I have plenty of wood even though I'm getting down to the stuff that I have to split. Bring on the sap. Making good tasting medium amber here.

Russ

[maple flats]

I'm ready for the sap too. I still haven't burned all of my wood that was ready for 06 season and still have about 3 full cord for 07 additional, all cut and split. I could handle about 3 weeks of super sap runs yet, if I could only be so lucky. I do need to get vac to help that flow. Too small to warrent gas powered vac and no elec at the site yet. Maybe this year or next.

[tuckermtn]

We gathered 330 gallons this evening (Wednesday) excellent run for just about all areas...some with 3-4 gallons in 24 hrs. All were still running well at 7pm

cleaned front pan at 8pm and fired at 9:30. Just shutting down now but still have 130+/- gallons left.

have a friend who pulled his taps 2 weeks ago and we are raiding his woodpile (will restock w/more wood after season) but not sure how long that'll last. tried to pick up some more pine cut-offs today but the sawmill was low.

have a good one...

-tuckermtn

[tuckermtn]

Had close to 300 gallons of sap again last night- We didn't gather on Thursday so the stuff in our buckets and tanks was a pretty cloudy- still running pretty close to 1.8%. Grade went back down to the medium/dark borderline...Paplebon is the Man- and was good to see Wakefield get some run support.

I think today will be our last boil...doesn't look like the forcast is very cold at night for the next few days... and we've pushed our luck with borrowing wood this last week.

Our final tally will be over 90 gallons...our best tap/syrup ratio for the three years we've been at it...and by far the latest season we've had

Best of luck to all...

-tuckermtn

[Mark-NH]

Tuckermt,

90 gallons from 350 taps. Those are some impressive numbers. Congratulations on you season. We just broke the 30 gallon mark with 450 taps but one orchard never really ran for whatever reason. I skipped putting out 100 buckets because of all the snow and ended up regretting it. The is always next year.

Mark

[tuckermtn]

we pulled all our buckets and most of the tubing runs- got an additional 100 gallons yesterday and 50 more today.

put our "boiling today" signs out yesterday on Rt 11 and got maybe a dozen visitors...sold $150 of syrup...plan on doing more satruday/sunday open house type boils next year.

Still have to push though the semi concentrated sap/syrup from the pans to finish out the season...will post totals later in the week

looks like not much logging work for a while with the prolonged mud season- time to do some clean up and scouting for more taps next year....

good luck to all still at it...

-tuckermtn

[Parker]

Ill set you up with another 100 at foultens if you want them,,,Tubing already there,,sure we could work something out,,

[tuckermtn]

pulled the final taps today in our main sugarbush...was good to see that there were very few still running...

flushed using a new set up for us with adding compressed air...seemed to get the taps whipping around- we'll see how the critter damamge is next winter.

pushed the last of sap throught the front pan tonight while listening to the Sox come from behind off Mariano Rivera...

season total will be slightly over 97 gal- by far the best gallons-to-taps ratio we've had.

This long season will have to tie me over as we will be in British Columbia Canada for the year next year (my wife has a sabattical from teaching) No maples to tap out there...

best of luck to all...

-tuckermtn