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Theron,
Appears that it is about done down here. Short and sweet season but that's the way it goes. Vacuum would have helped some this year, but hard to make a lot of syrup when you only get basically four runs the entire season. Still keeping the fingers crossed for another small run or two.
After 4 weeks, the trees can't take 50's to 70 degrees for 7 straight days with no freezing.
Brandon- Thats sugaring Im afraid. Ive always thought that you take what you get with this stuff and be happy becouse really its totally out of your control. Your kind of at the southern outskirts of the sugaring area so I can see the warm weather doing that to you. We actually have the same problem here a lot of years. The vac does help but its expensive and somewhat problematic so what do you do. Right now, knock on wood, things are humming along properly here. I got 9 hours of sleep last night so I kind of recharged like the trees. Last two nights I got 4 and 3 hours sleep so it felt good. We got a freeze night before last and it barely hit 32 degrees and this was after several nights of warm and it was off to the races. Got enough sap off that run to make maybe 80 or 90 gallons then it ran all night no freeze yesterday it picked up and ran like heck and got another 4000 plus gallons of sap. Very amazing with the high vac. Definitely a whole different ball game. Here the gravity stuff has done very little. So now Im cought up except the 4000 plus or minus gallons. Doesnt look like it will run much today so I should be able to get back at it and get on that sap. Feel real lazy this morning. Hope everyone is having fun. Theron
Brandon vacuum would help you out alot. When you have those warm spells when it doesn't run on gravity you can still get sap with vacuum. It has saved my season many times since I have started using it. Like The(highvacuum)ron said it is kind of problematic but the extra sap more than makes up for the problems.
just finished a 48 hour marthon made 502 gallons. all with dairy pumps at 17 inches of vac. have not got l/r pumps out yet. r/o is a bit of a dissapointment. my 1200 i had last year would drink 1600 gallons of sap an hour and make 8 percent with nice clean early sap. this new on with 2 7.5 high pressere pumps and three membranes will not drink 1200 an hour and make 6 percent. go figure thats what i call progress? but after all that it is 16 degrees with a wind chill of 10 below here in i have sap to boil later.
We boiled for the first time yesterday. We had some sap from the weekend and it only got above freezing from supper time on Tuesday to supper time yesterday. It ran OK but the crazy winds (like 50mph crazy) kept it from going hard. It should be a good weekend.
We had a HUGE day yesterday getting 400 gallons from 235 buckets. Lost another 50+ to dropped buckets from the 50 mph winds and being too full. It started running Tues aft and went all night til quitting Wed evening. I'm bushed. Boiled til midnight, still leaving sap in the tank, and then one of my farm clients calls at 5 AM with a cow with her uterus out. What fun.
Which is harder 15 hours of syrup or a prolapse. I might take the prolapse .
Awesome runs out there....sounds fun and exhausting.
We have been back in the deep freeze, minus 12 F this morning. Tomorrow afternoon it is to get back up to 35 and then next week looks like show time all week.
I am looking forward to it, as I hope to get the vac running tomorrow and get the final leak check done, and be set for the big week.
I believe we have to WAAANNNNTT it, and I do!
I agree that with vaccum, I could probably make 150 gallons or even 200 gallon of syrup per year, but living 30 minutes away and lots of days I don't get to the sugarhouse, vacuum would be a bad idea. My idea of vacuum is more taps and that is why I have as many as I do. I don't have the time or energy to make 150 gallon of syrup each year and my taps are scattered in 3 different locations well away from the sugarhouse, so that also kinda kills that notion. I could run aprox 250 taps on vacuum right to the sugarhouse, but not a good idea when sometimes I don't come over for 4 or 5 days if not much is happening.
I have the KISS idea of making syrup(keep it simple stupid) LOL!
I may add another 100 or so taps before next year as I had plenty of help this year and hopefully would again this year. Last Saturday when we boiled off 930 gallons was really the first time I had hardly done any boiling the entire season. I do all the maintenace, most of the collecting, cutting and hauling of the wood and all the other preparations and helpers do the boiling and help some with the collecting.
Brandon- Dont blame you, if I was that far from the bush I dont think I would either. Be pretty tough anyway. Has to have pretty regular attention. If you were wanting to make a living at it youd have to do it in my opinion but thats not your end goal so might as well have fun and what you get you get. Kind of nice not worrying if something is broke and just go see if the sap ran. Boy, here the gravity guys are having a tough time of it too. I dont think anyone in this area has done much unless they have the vac. It amazes me the difference in the sap you get. When we were kids here you could do pretty good on gravity but anymore we dont seem to get the weather thats just right for it. Probly just trends in the weather. 30 years doesnt mean much to this earth. Could be some cycle. Theron