Bigsap Warning 2009

TTHHH(A+FOREXTRAEFFORT)RROOONNN--Throw a package of hot dogs in each till of your syrup pan,,that will keep it down,,,,,,anyone herd from dave Y?

BIGSAP UPDATE NORTHEAST PA- Slept 9 hours last night everything seems possable now. Stats- 4500 gallons of sap in the tanks, R.O. running, firewood being delivered tonight, sap maybe around 1.5%. Gonna try to get it in the barrell. Been a little hard on syrup pans but gotta do what gotta do. Took one membrane down but probly be fine once I send it in. All in all one heck of an interesting season. Gonna keep going till I see leaves. Hope you northern boys get the BIGSAP till may. Thee(rested up and ready to make more mersh)rooon. :lol:

I would guess I had my big sap already.Small chances of freezeing weather from now on and we all know that with warm weather comes buds and I would have no use for buddy sap around here as I can't sell any syrup.I only had one day where I had full buckets on a lot of trees but sure was neat to empty them out and see the 5 gallon pails fill up fast.

Ken,

The weather forecast does NOT look good, but don't call the over just yet. There are people who are still producing 200 miles south of you. By the sounds of your sap totals, your maples run like my coldest tank, which has only had one half-decent run.

As long as we don't have a bunch of sunny 60 degree weather, the Maples will hold out 2 or more weeks.

Bigsap Update- Still making fine quality mersh. Sap has gone from what appears to be 2% milk to whole milk and hoping to hit cottage cheese before Im done. Very proud of myself mastering this important part of sugaring. Boo-y my oldest boy was out to the shed other night so I thought Id hand down my new found talents to the next generation. He wondered what stunk so bad and I expained to him the importance of making high quality mersh, "MONEY" yeah baby, 25 buckaroos per gallon. Good enough reason for anyone. Him and I cranked up the outlaw country and really spent some quality time together. Mom says I get along with the kids so good becouse their mentallity and mine are pretty close. Think thats a compliment. Anyway still running. Ill be darned if last night it hit about 31 degrees and the sugarhouse taps which are the oldest, second week of Jan started tapping them in, ran 1000 gallons today on 2600 taps. I think thats pretty amazing. Ones across the road ran 900 on 900 taps. What the heck gonna keep going. I wonder if the high vac is keeping the trees from leafing out. Maybe its sucking the leaves back in and Ill be able to go to May or June. Better get Proctor down here. Maybe I can get them up to speed. Good luck to all, make tons. Thee(so much vac the trees dont know what the heck is goin on)rooon. :mrgreen:

I just figured out why this year has been so bad as far a sap quantity. Theron is sucking it all they way to pa. Can you please shut that vac off or atleast turn it down a notch so I can get a little sap up here. Man I think even the river is getting lower. :rolleyes:

Should be off pretty soon. Dad keeps wanting to shut it off but I turn it back on. Theron

Hey theron it must be something with our trees down here. The other day I took a walk in the woods and found a lot of the trees that I tapped still running, large wet streak down the tree.
Now there wouldn't be enough to boil but they were still running, and we haven't had a cold night for at least a week.
Oh yeah I tapped some trees the last week in Jan and the rest I tapped in Feb 6th.

It still amazes me how we can what we do.

Well after last nights frost and the temp already approaching 40 I am hopefully in for a lot of sap today. I might have to go buy more bottles yet after today. Anybody have a strong back that wants to pop by about 6 tonight and carry 5 gallon pails.

Got down to 28 deg F here in Lyman/Littleton NH, Not really cold enough for a good run. The ice in the puddles was less than 1/4" thick so I suspect we will get just a small run today. However, the good buckets are running 2-4 drips per second so....... just maybe?!.

Dumped the little bit of yellow sap in the buckets and washed out the 600 gal. SS. tank to keep the grade up this morning.

Supposed to be 60 tomorrow, and no freeze in sight soooooo????.

Boy, am I glad I'm only doing this as a hobby. It would be to frustrating to be trying to make a living on this. Hopefully today will put me close to 80 gallons which will at least beat my worst year of 72 gallons.

But, I'm gonna hang on till the peepers start singing (and their ponds are still frozen).


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