Ready to go for Fall Tapping

[buckeye gold]

All this cold weather has set my trees pretty well. The cold weather is supposed to break Tuesday and then be good sap weather for a couple weeks, with cold and warming days. I had a nice day today so I fixed the AOF lines, touched up the refractory cement, Washed down the head tank, washed the gathering tank, washed all the racks and table and shop vacuumed the floors. I done a preseason wash of my pans and replumbed my float box. So I am ready to tap about Wednesday or Thursday, for my fall season. This is looking good for an early tapping. Last time I saw a real cold spell like this in early December with a warm up was the first year I fall tapped and I made 1/3 of my syrup from mid December to early January. The spring sucked that year.

Now I get my bags on holders and some filters sewn up and it's game time.

[Windy Acres]

I set up a small bush on 3/16 just for fall tapping, we were going along good, then the cold set in, i drained the evaporator and saved everything, we should be drawing syrup on the next run

[buckeye gold]

well it's Taken a lot longer than I thought, but the trees thawed out and started running today, so I put out 51 taps. I imagine it will be a short fall season, but I hope to make a little syrup and get primed for the spring. who knows it may stay warm a I'll just go right into spring. Iwas just a few years back that we had early cold then a mild winter and I only stopped for 10 days in January. That spring it warmed up real fast and I had made 2/3 of my syrup early and into mid Feb. everyone who waited had an almost bust year. So here's to rolling the dice.

[buckeye gold]

Collected 25 gallon this morning and built my first fire. I had enough to sweeten my pan somewhat ( a full pint hybrid ). It's almost 60 here today and I'm afraid it will kill the run. The next week looks good though. Maybe I'll finish a little syrup tomorrow.