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Mike Van
03-16-2010, 06:34 AM
31.5 this A.M. and the wind has died. There's frost on the grass - I don't think it's enough to get a run started, but we'll see in a few hours. Tonight too, maybe?

lafite
03-16-2010, 07:05 AM
I'm pulling for you Mike! I have another 11 months to wait here :(


steve

Mike Van
03-16-2010, 05:17 PM
Well, I picked up 10 gals from 60 taps. Wow, some run. Maybe tonight for frost, here's hoping. Good thing was I had sap from all but 2 taps, and those 2 hadn't done much all season. I can't imagine mid March and there's no more frost? Someones gotta be full of it, I hope it's the weatherman.

markct
03-16-2010, 09:08 PM
yea surprisingly my vac taps got a run of about 150 gal after the minor frost last night, so i guess it was enough, about a half gal per tap that is. its all cloudy and gona make commercial but its something to trade at bascoms towards more stuff! hope to get the same tommorow

Mike Van
03-17-2010, 03:58 AM
At 4:45 AM, one thermometer has 27.9 & the other 28.1 We should be back in business!!! :)

ctjim
03-17-2010, 06:46 AM
yea we had a frost here as well car windows frosty and the puddles in the driveway were iced up a bit too. maybe i can get a bit more sap yet this season, buckets are still up.

DaveB
03-17-2010, 01:06 PM
25º this morning at my place in Stafford. I was worried that we weren't going to go below freezing because it was 35 around 10pm last night. We went below around midnight so we had a good freeze.

My wife said that most of our taps on buckets were running pretty good but some weren't running. I have hope that my trees in the woods are doing well!! I'm glad that I have different bushes in different locales but it's just been so warm lately!

I'm hoping for a few hundred gallons before things dry up again for lack of freezing weather. The next week looks rough, but the last week of March (according to CrapuWeather) looks pretty good.

Dave

markct
03-17-2010, 01:27 PM
yea had a good freeze here last night, i think my sap is buddy tho since its been cloudy and a bit of an off taste last boil, not sure if enough of a freeze will change that or is good sap all over for the year? still gona make some C to trade towards tubing stuff at bascoms open house tho

Mike Van
03-17-2010, 06:30 PM
I had 40 gal/sap, about 20 off my runs last week. 40's better than none though, as I'm about 400 gal behind my average years. I dumped buckets at 4:30 & they were running pretty good. Another little frost tonight would be just great. My place is at the bottom of some hills, when there's no wind, the cold settles in here pretty good.

markct
03-17-2010, 08:19 PM
yea i got nothing at all here on my gravity lines and buckets, i mean zero, not even wet or a single drip in the tanks! but my vac gave me about another 75 gal cloudy buddy sap!

Mike Van
03-18-2010, 04:51 AM
28 here again this morning, there'd be frost on the punkin' if it hadn't rotted away.........:lol: I've got a half dozen trees I never tapped, I may go do them today.

lafite
03-18-2010, 06:44 AM
it looks like we now are all living vicariously through you!

sapbrush
03-18-2010, 08:12 AM
yep thats what im doing this morning on the noth side of the tree, i got so many tress i couldnt get to because of the snow, the snow is gone finally,seems the best bet right now good luck, hey motor oil is beter than nothing lol JIm

valleyman
03-18-2010, 10:17 AM
I reluctantly chose to pull in my buckets this past weekend and I lost out yesterday and today :( I was surprised to see how well the trees were flowing yesterday afternoon.

I'm keeping my taps in until I see what happens next week. If we get back to a normal temp pattern (supposedly a strong cold front coming in Monday) maybe I can get 2-3 days of sap for a farewell batch.

Maybe make some coated nuts a or barbecue glaze with it.

markct
03-18-2010, 02:35 PM
interesting that your buckets flowed valleyman, i know the only thing that has flowed a drop in 2 weeks here has been my vac lines. gravity taps seem to have just plain dried up in this funny warm spell we had, and the vac line has been flowing but less and less each day it seems, oh well try again next year!

valleyman
03-18-2010, 03:36 PM
Yeah mark. I was surprised to. Trouble is that I have spouts dripping pretty well with no buckets attached. I wouldnt boil until the weekend and with the very warm weather I decided not to try and kill myself to keep it cold. My friend in Hamden said his were flowing yesterday as well.

I'm keeping mine in until next week, then I'll pull them.

As I mentioned in another post, I have several large park trees tapped which have near perfect form with large canapy. Those trees have been flowing very well all season.

foursapssyrup
03-18-2010, 04:55 PM
gathered 40 gals yesterday, i know i'm not in ct, but we are kinda in the same playing field.... today we have maybe 5-8 gals in the collection points. that frost did wonders, now for a couple more just like them.....

Mike Van
03-18-2010, 07:02 PM
I picked up 50 gal this afternoon, boiled it down. Inside the shed got up to 96 deegrees. Not fun this time of year. Definitly dark, but I don't think it's junky dark. I have some ask for dark, most years I can't get any. I don't know if it'll frost tonight, radio says not, but we'll see. This is funny - I had one tap, so far this season it might have produced 2 gal of sap. Yesterday it didn't run so I pulled it, drilled on the other side of the tree & drove it in. I had 3 gal/sap tonight in that pail! Stinky year for sure, too warm, too fast.

Mike Van
03-19-2010, 05:04 AM
30 deegrees this morning [fri] so one more day should be 'on tap' :lol: NOAA shows more cold weather Tue & Wed next week, so maybe? A guy maybe 2 miles from me stopped yesterday, he has a bunch of maples he said I was welcome to tap. Too late this year [lack of supplys too] I'm going to check them out for next season though.

orange county maple
03-19-2010, 05:19 AM
We had a low of 0 going to run like crazy to bad you live in conn. Weather is great up where they make real maple syrup in Vermont.:lol:

DaveB
03-19-2010, 06:35 AM
We had a low of 0 going to run like crazy to bad you live in conn. Weather is great up where they make real maple syrup in Vermont.:lol:

You must have never tasted pure Connecticut maple syrup, have you?

You might want to check your thermometer too. The coldest temp I saw in VT was in the 20s. Did you mean celsius? If so, I was -2 this morning! :D

Dave

Mike Van
03-19-2010, 06:24 PM
I picked up another 40 this afternoon & boiled it away. 98 in the barn not long ago. Should have made a barn with roll up sides. A few trees stopped today, it should have been a great run, but I can see it dying here now. All dressed up, no place to go - :cry:

Mike Van
03-20-2010, 06:47 AM
31.3 this A.M. frost all over the field, maybe one more hot night? Nope, not to be. I picked up 12 gal, the tail end of yesterdays run. Hard to believe it's snowing out west. I can hear the fat lady singing louder. NOAA shows wed, thu & fri for frost here, so I'm going to sit and wait. The heat wave is over by the looks of it. I'm short 250 gal/sap from my average year.