February Journal THE COUNTDOWN!!!

In Hudson NH where I live it quickly turned to rain...flooding everywhere the land is low...then came the wind....wow...sounded like freight trains coming in the night...50-60 mph gusts..pines snapped off 40 ft up where they were still 24" across.....lines down...no power. Could be a couple days, so says PSNH....on top of that looks like rain in my sap ( gotta get to Sunnyside and get a sap hydro...but phone call won't go through and its almost 50 miles away)....and I thought it was cool that the season looked like it was havin' an early start!! Ahhhhh...the joys of sugaring!! ( a play on my Dad's "The Joys of Motoring"...usually said as we waited for a tow on the side of the road!)

The report from the farm is we got 12"+ of heavy wet snow yesterday. We need to get that off the sugar camp roof before if freezes rock hard! I was looking forward to tapping in running shoes before that dumping of snow!

I just spoke to Sunnyside. They're open every day from 8-4 through the season. The power is out so their phones aren't working.

this storm just gives me another reason to hate pines. almost every tree that snapped is a pine, and they tokk out a few good and big maples. damage could have been alot worse though. i guess i wont be putting any new taps in for awhile.

Made the first syrup of the season!!!!! I made almost 3/4 of a gallon today on a half pint. A half gallon is going to the guy I got my evaporator tommorow morning. I just dropped of a pint at my grandpas. He will be getting more (he helped build the sugar shack). And I kept a 12 ounce glass bottle for tomorrow mornings pancakes. Hopefully I'll make more syrup tommorow.

Well at least I got started washing buckets and such today. Seemed to take longer then last year did. Could be the extra hundred containers maybe.
I put out one test tap to see if anything happens. Not sure if its to warm or two cold. Hasn't froze for 3 days so I have no idea if tha's the problem ot it's not warm enough. Just about all the snows gone already in places. Time will tell.

All trees are tapped we got a couple good runs since thursday. We have recieved about 24" of wet snow this week, high winds but no lines down very lucky. I will be starting vacum at about noon today after it gets above 32. Should be firing up monday about 500gals of sap as of yesterday.Everything is ready to go bring on the sap.:)

This Sucks!!! So I'm installing new taps I used the clear disposable ones last year but got health spouts this year. I went up to the north bush had a little over 200 left to tap. got through the first bag then my wife opened the last bag and said... Jim these are different.. they are bigger! , oh CRAP THEY SENT ME A BAG OF OLD LARGE TUBING SPILES ... not 5/16ths NOW WHAT?????

so I have to get a 100 health spout somewhere tomorrow and finish the woods. everything else including buckets are tapped and running. no tanks on the truck... evap not final cleaned and test boiled, including testing my drawoff I built UGH... I'm so behind this year.

Hopefully I will boil to sweeten on Wed. most likely have 700-800+ gallons waiting if it runs I'll be swimming in sap. playing catch up the rest of the week I'm sure

I had a real nice run today, collect 30 gals around 3pm and started the evap and TRIED to finish it all but no luck. I probably got an additional 15 gals since I collect at 3!!
The good thing is the sugar content is starting to rise a bit. I tought I had water trees there for awhile, they were running right at 1%!!!!! :o
Now they are close to 1.5% not good but better. I should be able to finish this batch of syrup sometime mid week if I keep getting this volume of sap.

I have to make a run in the morning to Granger for a new blower for the forced draft on my evap. The leaf blowers are just to loud, even when they are outside.

I boiled more today. Made a quart. My tap count is 70 on a half pint. Yes I no I'm crazy. I will add at least 2 more taps on mid march when I give a demonstration on makeing maple syrup to my 4-H group. I already have request for syrup. I'm not going to have a problem selling all the syrup I want to sell. Next year I need to make more to keep up with the demand.