Vernon County

Hi fellow sappers.

I am overdue to check in, Saturday March 5th my son and I cooked 300 gallons of sap, and Sunday 125 gallons of sap. then Sunday afternoon went up top to gather more, trees not doing much, got 140 gallons from 225 trees. thought Monday would be good, we piled up snow for future needs. no snow up top but two to four inches in the valley. Tuesday march 8th I went back to gather, heard a gobbler gobbling also the red winged black birds are here.started gathering at 9 am most pails half to overflowing, gathered 340 gallons of sap. Worked in the sugar house, back to the cabin at 8:00 Wednesday March 9th a friend of ours came to help me in the sugar house, cooked from 7:30 to 4;00 250 gal of sap made 7 gallons syrup. sap tested at 2% we went up top to gather, many taps dry only got 40 gallons sap. still have 280 gallons of sap in cold storage to cook Saturday. had spiders ants moths snow fleas some pinkish mold starting to grow on the bottom of some pails. no peepers in the marsh as of yet, Good thing we tapped early, forecast is way to warm, looks like a season killer. God bless.

First year tapping in northern Iowa county. Had 20 taps in for 12 days and ended up with just shy of 4.5 gallons of syrup. Pretty pleased with that. Now I just need to come up with a better evaporator set up for next year and can hopefully double my taps.

I was getting concerned Mr. Sugar Maple. Was waiting patiently for an update. Sounds like all is good for you. It seems you had a slow down prior to pretty much of a stop. Mine was like an overnight stop. No peepers here yet either but I do have pretty active water bugs moving around. Waiting for wood ducks to find their new nest. Today we are doing "finish work" in the kitchen. We did our last boil first and we have a nice dark color to it. Working through the last four batches over the next day and a half. One disappointment is that our sap never got past three per cent sugar. Last year they were a solid 4 for a time.

I am thinking my trees are producing real close to AK's over in Iowa County. 54 taps and we are predicting about 11 to 12 gallons syrup. Spending the day washing buckets in between getting called into the house to fill bottles. Glad it is the wife watching the pot boil. But I do love this early season. A final note - We are retiring a few trees next year. It seems they have either moved further down the hill or I simply don't choose to go that far down for the sap. Most likely the latter.

Irish Ridge thanks for the up date, sorry i am so slow at posting a reply. Well Saturday March 12th my grandson my son and myself cooked up the 280 gallons of sap we had stored, a beautiful day cooked until 4:00 pm then went up top to gather sap, we got 185 gallons more to cook on Sunday.Some sap was quite cloudy so we kept it in a tank of its own, did not want to ruin our sweet water if it was bad. went back to the cabin at 8;00 pm. peepers were peeping in the marsh now. Sunday up at 6:00 am cloudy sprinkles but we had sap to cook, started with pure sap,with no sweet water in the evaporator. Cooked about 40 gallons the steam smelled good and tasted good so we started to add sweet water and cooked it all. Was very dark but tasted great. I plan to move 60 taps down on the north west hill side to see if we can extend the season with the colder forecast . Glad your wife likes to help, mine has no interest in working in the woods making maple syrup. Your trees sure put out some sweet water, ours tested only 2 percent. God bless.

Well,...I learned a lot this year. The sap didn't run like I thought (some pails overflowing, others half-full). Will re-engineer the outside pan with some framing for our insulating firebrick (so it doesn't collapse again). Used big half-gallon jars to settle syrup, then drew-off into pints, re-heated to 180 and sealed. 24 pints of the clearest syrup yet. No sugar sand! Not bad for 2 weekends having fun, finding antler sheds, watching wildlife and listening to quiet. (read that again,..) Found another couple dozen big maples in a far corner of the property. Maybe for next year. We have syrup to give to the kids and friends. Life is good, this was fun. Take care.
Tom

No buds yet and getting a slow run on some of my 20 taps on this north facing slope. Maybe enough for one more boil this week. Holding out in Vernon county.

Hello everyone. Well, I made 13 quarts from the 150 gallons of sap I collected from my south side silver maple. I pulled those taps on the 10th, the trees decided they were ready for spring. Tapped sugar maples on the north side that weekend, first collection of sap I was able to keep was 45 gallons from 36 taps. I'll go down and check them out tomorrow and maybe have enough to boil once more yet.

Hi Ray. I hope you kept your taps in for a few days. I finally pulled all of mine on 3/26 but not without some remorse. About 12 of them had dried up, other 8 were running quite fast and sap was clear after the snowstorm and nighttime low temps. It was a good season for me with 3.75 G of really nice syrup from about 160 G of sap out of 20 taps on sugar maples. Had 3.7% sap early in the season, down to 1.8% last week. Ran out of wood with final boil on 3/26. All signs that it was time to stop checking weather forecast, maple trader, etc and get back to my real job:)... until next year.

Will tap a few in Vernon County this weekend (2/11) and let you know what happens. Sophie the dog will like the walks in the hills and listen to me haul the gear uphill in a sled.
Tom