Tapped in Montague - 02/20/2022

[johnpjackson]

Got the rest of my 37 total taps put in on Sunday, 2/20/22. Collected ~30 gallons of sap this morning, 2/22/22 :)

Also found a mouse frozen into the ice in the bottom of one of my buckets! :o

[berkshires]

Yeah, seems like I get a rodent in a bucket most years. One of the things I like about the white buckets at the base of the tree is that they're fully covered, and the critters can't get in (even moths). The downside is that they tend to blow away or fall over from time to time.

GO

[johnpjackson]

Collected ~65 gallons this morning!

I'll get started on boiling, this evening :D

[berkshires]

Nice! 95 gallons should keep you busy for a little while. :)

Gabe

[johnpjackson]

We just got another 25 gallons this evening, before the temperature plunges and would have frozen it! :)

[johnpjackson]

Finally, the sap is starting to run here again! :D

[Aaron Stack]

Yeah, seems like I get a rodent in a bucket most years. One of the things I like about the white buckets at the base of the tree is that they're fully covered, and the critters can't get in (even moths). The downside is that they tend to blow away or fall over from time to time.

GO

I put bricks on top of my buckets, but also got some 18" garden stakes I hammer in or put at an angle against the ones that still blow over. So far so good with that strategy thi sseason.

[berkshires]

I put bricks on top of my buckets, but also got some 18" garden stakes I hammer in or put at an angle against the ones that still blow over. So far so good with that strategy thi sseason.
Yeah, I put a rock or brick on top too. Never tried pounding in a stake. When there's some sap in the bucket that helps. Not sure if the ground would often be too frozen when I'm putting out buckets for that stake trick to work, but I'll remember it.

Looks like starting this weekend the season is really going to start.

GO

[johnpjackson]

No more mice in my buckets, so far!! :lol:

Yesterday we collected ~25 gallons of sap. Hoping today will be a solid producer. It's already 35 degrees this morning, before 9am, and the sun is shining. Fingers crossed!

[berkshires]

No more mice in my buckets, so far!! :lol:

Yesterday we collected ~25 gallons of sap. Hoping today will be a solid producer. It's already 35 degrees this morning, before 9am, and the sun is shining. Fingers crossed!
Reading your reports of sap collection always get me so excited, and then I remember my sugarbush is like 500 feet elevation higher than yours, and I realize my trees aren't going to be doing squat. LOL

GO

[johnpjackson]

I'm sorry!!!!!!!!!! :D

Does that just mean that your 'season' begins/peaks/concludes a little later than mine? Or does it mean you might just get less of a season overall? I hope it's only the former!

[berkshires]

I usually pull taps in the first week of April. Trees aren't budding out yet, but they're either shutting down or it's just getting too warm and sap is spoiling. What about you?

GO

[johnpjackson]

Well, I collected about 12 gallons of sap today. I thought there would be more but I guess the temperature dropped sooner than I expected by the end of the afternoon. And, I think the sharply cold nights we've been having are too cold for good sap runs?

[johnpjackson]

9 degrees F out when I got up this morning and only supposed to just get above freezing sometime this afternoon. I don't think much sap will run today.

[johnpjackson]

Yesterday, Sunday 3/6 and into this morning we had a good run. Collected ~75 gallons. Definitely need to start boiling today when I get home from work!

[johnpjackson]

Last night I got 60 gallons of sap evaporated and then collected 20 new gallons from the trees this morning :)

I've ~90 gallons of sap remaining in my barrels right now. Going to boil more again this afternoon/evening. My evaporator is good for ~6 gallons/hour.

[johnpjackson]

Collected ~55 gallons of sap yesterday! And last night's weather, and today's, looks like it should mean a lot in the buckets again today. So much boiling to do, and so little time :o

[johnpjackson]

Just got home from work. My sap buckets have gallons in them!! :D

[johnpjackson]

Collected ~50 gallons today.

[johnpjackson]

Saturday I got ~23 gallons of sap. I boiled all weekend, from Friday evening, stopping only to go and sleep. I got all caught up by Sunday late afternoon and drew off ~3 gallons of syrup. Yum!

[berkshires]

Saturday I got ~23 gallons of sap. I boiled all weekend, from Friday evening, stopping only to go and sleep. I got all caught up by Sunday late afternoon and drew off ~3 gallons of syrup. Yum!

Nice! Methinks you need an RO or a bigger evaporator next year! You're swimming in sap!

I had a very big run too. At 57 gallons, nearly 2.5 GPT. And that includes a few taps that are duds. I counted 9 out of 23 buckets that were overflowing or almost full! Fortunately by the time I collected on Sunday afternoon, there was a lot of ice in the buckets to dump, so I actually only boiled 40 gallons. Good thing, because as it was, I didn't get to bed until 2 AM.

Gabe

[johnpjackson]

I'm paranoid about overflowing buckets! :lol: I find I've got a couple trees/taps that are good measuring sticks for what's going on in all our buckets. If the telltale ones are getting full I know it's time to go out and do a collection from all of them. It's been pretty reliable! I think tomorrow morning may be my next collection. After that, the weather is looking scary. Warm days, but nights above freezing, too. I hope it doesn't end the season??

[berkshires]

Yeah, I don't like overflowing buckets either. But living two hours from the sugar bush... I have to make compromises. That's one thing I like about the white buckets, they hold more than the 3 gallon hanging buckets. But I don't have enough for every tree. This year for the first time i'm keeping track of how much sap I get from each tree. Like athletes on sports teams, there will be winners (that get the big buck(et)s next year), and a few losers that don't even get tapped.

Gabe

[Aaron Stack]

Yeah, I don't like overflowing buckets either. But living two hours from the sugar bush... I have to make compromises. That's one thing I like about the white buckets, they hold more than the 3 gallon hanging buckets. But I don't have enough for every tree. This year for the first time i'm keeping track of how much sap I get from each tree. Like athletes on sports teams, there will be winners (that get the big buck(et)s next year), and a few losers that don't even get tapped.

Gabe

I numbered and tagged my trees this year, and I can tell you that 16 and 20 are on the no tap list. 16 bone dry most days, and 20 had a fair number of diddly to none so I may cross the street and replace those with a couple that have been offered by a neighbor who used to sugar.

Weather is looking like it's the end this week. Few freezing nights in the forecast the rest of March. I still have about 40 in the tank, 30 of it collected today but I am not sure if it's going to make it until Wednesday. Otherwise 5 quarts dark with reddish tint both Saturday and today.

[berkshires]

It's only the middle of March. Up here in the Foothills, I'm still hopeful of some more decent runs after this week.

We shall see.

GO

[johnpjackson]

Well, if this warm snap does clobber the rest of the season here, at least it will have done it with a bang. I just collected ~65 gallons! I will be headed back to the shed with it to start boiling now!

[johnpjackson]

I boiled the last of my sap last night. I'm going to leave my buckets out for another week or so to see what happens. My guess though is that it's all over for me here, until next year. This weekend I'll bottle my syrup. I think there's around 8-9 gallons.

[johnpjackson]

Tonight and tomorrow's forecasted temperatures are just below freezing. I'm going to empty the dregs out of my buckets this afternoon and see what might end up in them tomorrow and Wednesday. Another run would be fun.

[johnpjackson]

I emptied the nasty stuff out of my buckets this afternoon and gave them all a quick cleaning with a scrub brush and Star San. It got down to 32 last night and supposed to get down to 22 tonight. I would love to get some sort of run tomorrow! ��

[johnpjackson]

I collected about 15 gallons last night and sweetened my pan with them. Crossing my fingers I'll get a little bit more collected over the next week. All my taps are either a lot slower now or dried up completely. Sad!!

[johnpjackson]

Well, the warm spell did in fact seem to completely dry up most of my taps. A few have run a very little bit since but it seems like maybe they're not going to make a comeback. I had a dozen other maples I didn't have enough buckets to tap. I tapped them on Saturday and used buckets from the dried up trees. Not much sap came out of them but we haven't had a freeze thaw cycle for almost a week. Last night and the next couple of nights and days are forecast to finally do that again. So, I will find out if I get a run from the new taps. That would be nice!

[johnpjackson]

I got a nice little run yesterday! Almost 30 gallons of sap from 16 taps or so. I'll give them another day or two and then I think I'll pull them. It seems like this trend of approaching warm weather is only going to persist for the next 6 months or so :lol:

[berkshires]

I got a nice little run yesterday! Almost 30 gallons of sap from 16 taps or so. I'll give them another day or two and then I think I'll pull them. It seems like this trend of approaching warm weather is only going to persist for the next 6 months or so :lol:

2 GPT is fantastic for a late season run. You must have done a good job with sanitation.

I'm going to get what I can on Saturday and then pull taps. Two days ago was six weeks for most of my taps, so I don't expect a huge amount from these last couple of runs.

GO

[johnpjackson]

Oh!! Full disclosure! I meant to say this in the last post. Those 16 taps are ones I put in just a week ago, in trees that I didn't have enough buckets to tap at the beginning of the season. I took buckets off of trees that had dried up and tapped these new trees with them, just to see if I'd get a run out of them before it all comes to an end for this year.

What do you have to do with sanitation and taps/buckets that maximizes the length of time the tree will run, before it dries up?

[berkshires]

Oh!! Full disclosure! I meant to say this in the last post. Those 16 taps are ones I put in just a week ago, in trees that I didn't have enough buckets to tap at the beginning of the season. I took buckets off of trees that had dried up and tapped these new trees with them, just to see if I'd get a run out of them before it all comes to an end for this year.

Oh, okay. I bet it would be interesting to tap a couple of trees late just to see what the difference would be between your regular trees and your "fresh" ones on late season runs.


What do you have to do with sanitation and taps/buckets that maximizes the length of time the tree will run, before it dries up?

Well that's a subject for a whole other thread (or more like hundreds of threads here!)

GO

[ecolbeck]

Just pulled in 110 gallons from the last freeze. Never sugared in April before but we decided to hang in and see what happens.

[johnpjackson]

This weekend I bottled all my syrup. I ended up with 11.3 gallons of finished syrup! That's without counting the 3 gallons I incinerated at the beginning of the season...

My last batch of syrup was ~1.5 gallons, made from sap I scrapped and scrimped to collect after the warm snap really clobbered my sap flows. A lot of the sap I collected after that was noticeably somewhat yellow, and I could smell a difference in the steam when I was evaporating it. The taste of the syrup it made was different than 'normal' too. It doesn't taste bad. It just seems a little less 'maply' and maybe what was lost that way became more 'starchy'?

I learned a lot this year. One big plus was NOT filtering my syrup as it came out of the evaporator. I put all my finished syrup (except the last batch) into the same storage container until the end of the season. That let virtually all of the niter and whatever else settle to the bottom. I ladeled off almost all of the syrup from there, clean and clear, for finishing and bottling. Then I added distilled water to the bottom of the storage container to thin out what was left and remove. I heated that back up to a boil and then put just that through my pre-filter and orlon filter setup. I got most of that nearup back out through the filters, clean, and added it back to my finishing process. That eliminated most of the drawn out, time consuming torture of filtering after every boil.

Also, I think I've achieved all or nearly all of the evaporation rate my little 21" x 24" pan is capable of delivering, ~6 gallons/hour. I think I might be able to get that a little higher if I separate off the warming pan from over the main pan troughs, and mount it on top of a flu box I have an idea for making, to carry my propane burner's exhaust out of my sugar room (instead of into it).

I also want to build a way to feed my warming tank with sap continuously, rather than pouring it in by hand every 20 minutes from a bucket. I've got a couple of ideas for how I might like to accomplish that.

Three improvements I made this year turned out really great. I made an enclosed arch for my propane burner out of cement blocks. I cut my propane consumption at least in half! And my sugar room was no longer an oven...

I doubled my propane tank count from two to four. That, coupled with the lower rate of fuel consumption, gave me enough propane vaporization rate to get through my boils even when it was down in the low teens out for temperature. I also came up with a combination of fittings, valves and hoses to connect as many propane tanks together as I want. Trying to find off the shelf hardware for doing that was painfully expensive and limited in what it could do.

And finally, after I burned that first batch of syrup, I really appreciated the electric dead man shutoff valve and timer control I put together to shut off the burner fire if for any reason I lose track of monitoring the operation. If I set the timer on that and then don't return to add more sap or whatever else, the fire just goes out. No harm no foul!

And speaking of that, I ALSO began to make use of the advice I found here somewhere, about shutting down on a boil before it's finished, and coming back the next day or so to fire up and keep going. That helped me enormously in getting on top of boiling my sap much more as I got it collected, instead of storing up hundreds of gallons and then having to try and plow through it all in epic sessions.

I feel like all this is going to make for an even more fun and rewarding season next year! :D

Thank you to all of you who had encouragement and advice for me this year. I discovered that was more valuable and appreciated than I would have guessed, at the start of this season!

[johnpjackson]

Tapping this evening! The 8 taps I put in so far are running at high speed :o

[johnpjackson]

Ok, I got all 37 buckets that I own deployed. It seems like the weather should give me a run of a day or so and then a pause. That should give me enough time to get my storage barrels and evaporator cleaned and ready to go. This year I'm getting my operation underway at the last minute, or even past the last minute. Last year I lost 3 gallons of syrup because I burned a batch. This year I might have lost a few gallons because I started late? Well, that would still be an improvement. I will not have spent the time and fuel collecting and boiling those lost gallons this time! :lol:

[johnpjackson]

So far so good. Collected sap this morning. I got ~68 gallons, in ~36 hours, from 37 taps. I also got my propane tanks filled. 96 gallons of propane, $384, ouch...

Boiling to commence this evening when I get home from work.

The forecast (at the moment) for my area looks good for a perfect couple of days of sap running on Saturday and Sunday. I'm excited! :cool:

[johnpjackson]

What a good weekend :)

I got through boiling ~100 gallons of sap. And as of this morning, Monday, I had collected another 50 or so that I need to get started on when I get home from work this afternoon. And the sap was still running.

Weather forecast seems to point to the current run continuing for another couple of days. Then a sharp cold snap toward the end of the week. Maybe another run starting Sunday afternoon.

Wuhoo!

[johnpjackson]

Finished boiling a total of ~150 gallons yesterday afternoon/evening and ended with ~4 gallons of syrup. I put that into my 13 gallon stainless steel milk storage canister. I store all my syrup in that until the end of the season and then can it all at once. A big plus from that is that all the solids settle out of the syrup by then and I have little or no filtering to do to it. I ladle the syrup out of it carefully so I don't disturb the sediment. I can get almost all of it out that way without any sediment ending up in the canned syrup.

I started boiling my next batch of sap, the last 15 gallons I had sitting in my storage barrels, waiting to go. I'll collect sap from my tap buckets once or twice more before this weekend's cold snap and get it boiled. Then I'll be waiting to see when we get our next run!

[johnpjackson]

Collected ~45 gallons of sap today, accumulated over the past 24-36 hours or so. Going to get it all boiled off tonight and then it looks like mother nature is going to give me the weekend off. Good timing because my family needs me for something else this weekend. Then next week the weather forecast right now is looking good for more sap flow. Happiness!

[johnpjackson]

Last night boiled off the 15 gallons of sap I collected from the day before, which had run for the previous few days. Looking forward to promising looking next couple of days for more sap, weather-wise!

[johnpjackson]

Collected 48 gallons of sap today, not bad! Making a dent in boiling some of it tonight. The weather forecast for the next several days and beyond is looking ideal for more sap flow! 😀

[johnpjackson]

Collected 50 gallons of sap today, finished boiling off yesterday's sap. Going to finish what's in the evaporator shortly into syrup. Should be 3-4 gallons 😍🍁🍁

[ecolbeck]

Thanks for your continued updates. I've been keeping track with interest. We're just up the hill in Shelburne and for scheduling reasons we just tapped yesterday. Here's to a good season!

[johnpjackson]

Hey that's awesome!!! 👍😀😀 I wasn't really sure it was super interesting or helpful to anyone else to document my activities this way but it's actually been a good way for me to keep track of my own progress. In fact, I'm just about to post another update!

Shelburne or Conway are dream places I'd like to live in, on a productive farm. Maybe someday yet. Sooner or later. A fat lottery ticket winning would speed that up greatly! 😂

Good luck on your sugaring and I'll keep a lookout for your reports! 👍😀

[johnpjackson]

Good day today. Boiled off 60 gallons of sap including 15 gallons that came in today. Also figured out by weight that I've made ~7.6 gallons of syrup so far. I'm also starting to see my propane tanks looking like they're probably not going to get me through the whole season without a refill. Especially if the current weather forecast comes true. The night and day time temps predicted look epic for sap runs through next weekend! �� It's a little intimidating, honestly! 

[bigschuss]

Sounds good. I'm about 50 minutes west of you on a 2,000 cold swampy plateau and we haven't even tapped yet. Probably start tomorrow, but daytime highs are only in the low 30's for the next 10 days or so. Doubt we'll see anything.

[johnpjackson]

Just collected ~33 gallons from the day. Was going to do some boiling but it's later than I hoped and I'm tired. I will boil tomorrow after work, I promise (myself) lol!

[johnpjackson]

Sounds good. I'm about 50 minutes west of you on a 2,000 cold swampy plateau and we haven't even tapped yet. Probably start tomorrow, but daytime highs are only in the low 30's for the next 10 days or so. Doubt we'll see anything.

2,000' of elevation? Sounds like you must be somewhere in the vicinity of that place along the Mass Pike where there's a sign that says it's at the highest elevation anywhere east of the Mississippi!

That's a gorgeous looking sugar house.

[johnpjackson]

Today was a slow day. It didn't get cold enough in the overnight. I collected only about 13 gallons of sap this evening. I got yesterday's and that sap all boiled off.

Had a scare part way through the boil. The little dropper bottle I use to add defoamer to the pan popped its little metering tip off when I was trying to add a drop of defoamer to the pan. It disappeared into the boil!!!

I was horrified, thinking maybe the temperature of the sap just melted it into it. I shut off the fire and went fishing in the pan with a slotted spoon. I found the piece! It was all there. No melted plastic in my syrup hurray!!!!

The temperature here now is at the freezing point. Sap in the buckets was becoming slushy. But tomorrow's high isn't supposed to reach 40. So, I don't know if much or any sap will run. My buckets are all completely empty now though. So if there isn't another run right away, there isn't any sap sitting around for a day or two before that, getting spoiled.

Also, most of the sap that ran today had a yellowish tint. Either that's just because the run was drying up, or, my tap holes are nearing their end of life and are going to just run dry. I hope not!!!

[bigschuss]

2,000' of elevation? Sounds like you must be somewhere in the vicinity of that place along the Mass Pike where there's a sign that says it's at the highest elevation anywhere east of the Mississippi!

That's a gorgeous looking sugar house.

Thanks.

I'm up in the NW corner of Mass. in a little hilltown called Savoy about 10 minutes from Mt. Greylock.

[johnpjackson]

I love Savoy. It's definitely an area I'd live in, if job and the right property were possible.

[johnpjackson]

Collected ~50 gallons of sap from the past two days. Boiled 32 gallons of it tonight. Propane tanks are almost empty. Alerted my supplier I expect to be bringing my tanks to him for a fill-up in the next day or so.

Expected temperature and weather tonight and tomorrow seem ideal for more sap to run. Some of my taps seem like they've already dried up though. I relocated two of them to new trees this evening 😀

[Kamina]

Central MA here. Pulled my 25 taps yesterday. Trees were slowing down. Weird weather this year. I probably could’ve kept them in another week or two, but I am also running low on wood. I think I ended up with around a gallon and a half of finished syrup. Evaporator is cooling down as we speak.

[johnpjackson]

Yesterday was a good day here. I drew off my third batch of syrup from my evaporator, ~4.5 gallons. I also collected ~30 gallons of sap this morning from the last day or two. Last evening I also added 6 more trees to the two I already just newly tapped a couple of days ago. I take taps from trees that have stopped running and put them into trees I don't have enough taps for at the start of the season. Last year that seemed to work out fine, too. I'm working on boiling what I've collected today, right now 🥰

[johnpjackson]

Central MA here. Pulled my 25 taps yesterday. Trees were slowing down. Weird weather this year. I probably could’ve kept them in another week or two, but I am also running low on wood. I think I ended up with around a gallon and a half of finished syrup. Evaporator is cooling down as we speak.

The last cool down of a season always makes my heart ache a little!!!

My trees have definitely slowed, but it's not consistent. Some runs are still better than others. I'm going to keep going until I'm not getting enough sap quickly enough to keep what's unfinished from spoiling, while waiting for more to boil.

[johnpjackson]

Finished boiling the sap I had collected. There's a bunch out in the buckets that ran today. I'll collect that before work tomorrow morning and then see what the next few days of crazy weather actually ends up being. The forecasts have been flailing around a bit with the concerns of a possible big nor'easter developing Monday night or so.

I tapped 3 more trees today with taps from other trees that have dried up. That's a total of 13 new taps in the past couple of days. The buckets from the trees I tapped yesterday are all half full today. There's still some life left in the season here. For now, anyway.

I got my propane tanks refilled today. 96 gallons!

[ecolbeck]

Just finished our 4th boil since tapping 8 days ago. We’re at 2/3 crop already (10 gallons). It’s been an exhausting stretch. The weather has been ideal!

[bigschuss]

Finished boiling the sap I had collected. There's a bunch out in the buckets that ran today. I'll collect that before work tomorrow morning and then see what the next few days of crazy weather actually ends up being. The forecasts have been flailing around a bit with the concerns of a possible big nor'easter developing Monday night or so.

I tapped 3 more trees today with taps from other trees that have dried up. That's a total of 13 new taps in the past couple of days. The buckets from the trees I tapped yesterday are all half full today. There's still some life left in the season here. For now, anyway.

I got my propane tanks refilled today. 96 gallons!

Sounds good!

Still waiting to tap here in Savoy. A foot and a half of snow on the ground and 2' on the way tonight. My trees are still weeks away from "waking up."

The weather has not been ideal here. It's going to be a short season.

[johnpjackson]

Sounds good!

Still waiting to tap here in Savoy. A foot and a half of snow on the ground and 2' on the way tonight. My trees are still weeks away from "waking up."

The weather has not been ideal here. It's going to be a short season.

Holy moly! That's incredible! It's like you're living three weeks back in time. It's like I'd need a DeLorean with a flux capacitor to come and see!! :lol:

[bigschuss]

Holy moly! That's incredible! It's like you're living three weeks back in time. It's like I'd need a DeLorean with a flux capacitor to come and see!! :lol:

It's true. Savoy is just unlike nowhere else in Massachusetts. And in Savoy, I live in just about the coldest, snowiest part of Savoy. I routinely have snow on the ground into May. One year during spring turkey season I was tracking turkeys in the snow. Just stupid! :lol:

[johnpjackson]

Collected ~30 gallons of sap yesterday morning. Working on boiling it now, while work for me and school for the kids is shutdown from the snow storm. We've gotten ~12 of heavy, sticky snow so far and a few more hours to go before it's expected to be over.

I want to go out and check my buckets to see if anything interesting is still happening with them!

Our power's been out since 7am, too. We're running the essentials on a portable generator.

[berkshires]

It's true. Savoy is just unlike nowhere else in Massachusetts. And in Savoy, I live in just about the coldest, snowiest part of Savoy. I routinely have snow on the ground into May. One year during spring turkey season I was tracking turkeys in the snow. Just stupid! :lol:

It's amazing what a difference a little altitude makes. Just down the road a few miles from me Aaron is wrapping up his season as the trees start to bud, while I am mid season, and you are at the beginning of yours. I think my altitude is around 900 feet, Aaron's is around 100, and you are at what, 2000 feet?

GO

[bigschuss]

It's amazing what a difference a little altitude makes. Just down the road a few miles from me Aaron is wrapping up his season as the trees start to bud, while I am mid season, and you are at the beginning of yours. I think my altitude is around 900 feet, Aaron's is around 100, and you are at what, 2000 feet?

GO

Yes, 2000'. It is amazing, I agree. We are getting nailed right now. Each beer can is 5" tall and I've got 7 stacked here! Did you get snow today?

23044

[Aaron Stack]

Yes, 2000'. It is amazing, I agree. We are getting nailed right now. Each beer can is 5" tall and I've got 7 stacked here! Did you get snow today?

23044

The bear-can measuring method - love it. Today's snow was the wet/heavy kind so lots of downed limbs to clean up. Definitely depended on elevation. 4-5" here in Springfield, 8" at the shack in Westfield, Chester showing 13" and Savoy coming in at 29". At least it isn't like 2010 when there was so much snow I was shoveling my roof.

[johnpjackson]

It was just a 10 gallons of sap day collected here today. And it snowed all day. I haven't measured but I'd guess we received around 16" of snow from the whole storm. Our power is still out, too.

I'm almost done boiling all the sap I've got. It'll be interesting to see if we get any more runs here in the next few days, or if it's all over until next year.

[bigschuss]

The bear-can measuring method - love it. Today's snow was the wet/heavy kind so lots of downed limbs to clean up. Definitely depended on elevation. 4-5" here in Springfield, 8" at the shack in Westfield, Chester showing 13" and Savoy coming in at 29". At least it isn't like 2010 when there was so much snow I was shoveling my roof.

We were lucky. Because we are at elevation it is always colder and our snow was light and dry. Just woke up to a 2nd snow day...I'm a high school teacher...and we easily received another 12 or 14 overnight. Haven't seen any snow totals yet. I am guessing it will be pushing 40" total...maybe higher.



It was just a 10 gallons of sap day collected here today. And it snowed all day. I haven't measured but I'd guess we received around 16" of snow from the whole storm. Our power is still out, too.

.

We never lost power thankfully. Again, I think because the snow was light we didn't get the tree damage and power outages seen elsewhere.

[johnpjackson]

Things are definitely slowing down here. Collected 15 gallons of sap today. Almost done boiling it all. Since yesterday the forecast low temp for tonight was down around 25. Now that the night has actually arrived, the forecast has been changed to a low of 31. It's fascinating how relatively meaningless weather forecasts still are, beyond gross details. And even then, even those sometimes end up being mostly or completely wrong, too.

I suspect I'll be taking my buckets down sometime within the next 7 days because there just won't be any more sap runs. But it's been a great season. It makes it fun to imagine it coming again next year, already!

[Buffalo Plaid]

Switch was turned off here as well. Barely a trickle in the buckets tonight but have enough for one more boil tomorrow. No freeze in the forecast after the middle of next week so this may be it for ‘23. I’m happy with the end product

[johnpjackson]

Collected ~18 gallons of sap today (Monday) from the 16 taps I still have out. 11 of those were tapped just 2 weeks ago. The other 5 were done on Valentine's Day. The weather for Tuesday and Wednesday (nights and days) looks favorable for a bit more sap running, and then after that it is forecasted to stay too warm for at least a number of days going forward. I'm figuring that's the end of my season here. I'll boil once or twice more and that will be it, sad!!! But it's been my best season so far which is so pleasing!

[johnpjackson]

Oh sad!! This morning I pulled out the rest of my taps. It was time. They all were either dry or just giving a small amount of yellowing sap.

I've still got a last batch of almost finished syrup in the evaporator. I'll finish boiling it this weekend, get it into my decanting canister, and then get it canned in a week or two.

[johnpjackson]

Finally got the last batch of syrup out of my evaporator last night. 2.5 gallons. That gives me a total of 15 gallons this year, I'm amazed! Luckily I've got a growing number of family members from the past couple of seasons who now regularly remind me they'd be happy to have more maple syrup from me :lol:

I gave my evaporator pan an initial cleaning. I put in 5 gallons of water, brought it to a boil, flushed it out, then scrubbed a lot of accumulated deposits out of it. Flushed it again. This will be my first time trying adding vinegar (or maybe citric acid) to it and letting it sit for a long spell, to try and get the pan entirely clean.

Scrubbing the pan doesn't bother me anymore. Not since last year when I burned a whole batch of syrup and warped the pan. It's days of being pretty are clearly over. But it still works so I'm happy enough :D