Extended Season?

[KJamesJR]

Looks like we’ll be getting “The Thaw” on Tuesday. Everything if froze up currently. Even the collected sap in the buckets are chunks of ice.

Looking at the extended weather patterns... we could be looking at still a long season to come. I’m willing to bet at least halfway in to April. Made a lot of light syrup in late February. Turned a bit darker. Then more light after the first big nor’easter about a week or two ago. In fact, the lightest batch yet.

Went for a walk in the woods with the chainsaw today. More like a crawl. Could have layed on my belly and slid the snow being up to my hips in some area. Running out of wood now. Took down some standing dead trees. Think I’m going to call it quits in about two weeks. Just don’t have enough wood to keep going through mid-April.

[KJamesJR]

Sap started running yesterday. Made lots of really light syrup last night.

Might have enough wood to get through the season. Seems I have more standing dead trees than I thought. The Cherry and Paper Birch putting out some serious BTU's.

[raptorfan85]

After over a week with next to nothing my trees finally thawed out yesterday. Got 20 gallons on 35 buckets, then 30 gallons today! That's the most I've had in a 24 hour period. Weather's looking up this week... Let it flow!

[KJamesJR]

Think we're pretty much done.

I'm going to milk it until the end of this week, then do a big batch boil this weekend. 30 taps on 3/16, was getting 50+ gallons a day. Yesterday with freezing night time temps and 40 degree day, I had maybe 10 gallons of sap. Looks like I'm drying up finally. Odd because I've hardly produced any dark syrup. Went from golden to nothing.

[KJamesJR]

Sap flowing yesterday.

Took the preheater off my pan. Started dumping buckets of sap in by the 5 gallons full. Going to finish this last boil by this weekend in one big batch. The arch will now be a substitute incinerator, burning up all the wood chips, punky and knotty splits. Figure I can make my last bit of syrup and clean up the yard at the same time.

Trading a gallon of sap for half a cord of mixed hardwood seasoned 4 years. Sounded like a good trade to me. Will help me get a jump start on the wood supply next year.

[KJamesJR]

Pulled most of my taps last night after the flow slowed down. Was a good flowing day, but doesn't look like we're going to get another freezing night. Still have about 20 or so to pull tonight from my big producing area. Each put out almost a gallon yesterday but I think that's it. Just need to finish boiling what I have and I'm done. Made it through with just enough wood and still looking like its amber for me. On to next year with a re-designed evap.

Going to add another continuous sap pan, use my current divided pan as the syrup pan all on insulated masonry(brick and mortar) evap. Looking forward to summer, getting the garden going and typical warm weather stuff.