Wayne County 2017

[WV_ironman]

We started putting taps in on Friday 1/27/17 and finished up Monday... deer destroyed the tubing system in one of our woods we setup last year. It took two days to piece back together.
But we Had enough taps in to catch a nice run on the 29th then had a great run yesterday. got to warm today and it shut our trees down. Good start to the season working out the bugs as we go. Forecast is looking promising for the next week. Not looking good for getting much sleep. Good luck to all and stay safe out there. Hope every has a great year.
Rich

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Rich,

Praying you have a great season and I know you have gotten a good fast start to it already.

[WV_ironman]

Thanks Brandon we are praying for you and all our sugaring friends.

Had a good first week until temps went up to 70 degrees! Opened all tanks and cleaned out the evaporator. Hoping we get the freeze they are calling for Thursday night to give us a run this weekend before it goes back up into the 60's again with no other freeze currently in the forecast. Looks like we are going to get a good test of the new clear spouts vs the white spouts with these warm temps this early in the month of February.
After today's clean out we are just over 50 gallons of bottled syrup for season. All a nice amber with great flavor with the exception of today's clean out (yesterday was just to hot), syrup was dark but flavor was still good.

[WV_ironman]

Started pulling taps today got about 65% done. I will work on the rest this week after work. Mother Nature just didn't want to cooperate this season (again for the third year in a row)...we cleaned out the evaporator and finished bottling everything up and will spend the next week cleaning and storing everything for next year. It was far from the year we had hoped for by a long shot. Shoot we didn't even produce what we thought would've been a "bad year". Prolonged 60 and 70 degrees temps throughout the months of January and February completely crushed us, but we continue to learn every year and continue to become more efficient every year.

Good luck to everyone for the rest of the season and stay safe.
Rich

[220 maple]

Rich,
Any report on the couple from Kentucky that attended Maple Camp last summer? The Kentucky thread became very quiet the first week of Feb. therefore I suspect the producers there probably only had one week of sap flow!
Mark 220 Maple

[WV_ironman]

I'm pretty sure they are in the same boat as us talked to them briefly via email... this hot weather really made things tough. We didn't even make it to what we thought would be a BAD season meaning it was worse than bad but that's how it goes.
How are things going up there?