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I would be so amazed if I ever got a bucket of syrup. The forecast here is for maybe 45 by 5 in the afternoon. Takes that temperature for things to start moving. I have found that if the snow dosn't get slushy here the trees just sit there. I have my fingers crossed anyways.
Bigsapzar report- Yesterday pretty much everything went wrong that could but Im happy to report that the sap is currently headed for the barrells. Working down 4000 plus and I think mostly plus into something I can boil. Just went out and rinsed the R.O. Had to buy another honda sap pump last night becouse of an older pump seizing up. Gonna boil this morning and clean the R.O. and off to the races again. Ive never seen weather coming at us like this. Pretty much feel on the crappy side with never getting decent sleep but only two more weeks and its all over. PARRRRRRRRKER- next two weeks were going to "MAKE HISTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I think this is going to be one of those runs like grandpa sugarmaker tells stories of for decades. Theron
Theron I hope that you can survive the #%$*astrophy sap that is coming our way. The weather looks perfect for the next 10 days here. Stock up on Boiling Sodas and evaporator fuel everyone the BIGSAP is coming.
I don't put much trust in the 10 day, but the 5 day sure looks promising. Expected to start today early afternoon, and again mid morning tomorrow. In the meantime I am re cleaning the front pan to be ready. Get that wood ready, here it comes!
Everyday that its warm enough for sap to drip another couple of trees start dripping so I expect that this next week will tell the story. St. Pats day looks really good here.
We are getting perfect weather here again. Last night was cold, but now it's flowing big time again. We are going to have to boil tomorrow and some time early next week for sure.
The bigsap warning is up for Central Maine.
Get your boots on and get ready for the flood!
Keep some dry wood and easily burned furniture around.
We're going to need it!
A SAPTASTROPHE!!! Love it-just in from hanging 100 buckets (there iare some BIG trees on my road)-I was feeling a littel cockey today-wanted to get more taps out-pipe in the air-did not boil the 1400 gallons on hand- got the vac. pumps running around 11AM-ran pretty good- supposed to be good weather right along,,,,1995 taps sunk.( another 250 buckets in the pickup to clean tonight).should have a good long boil tommrow.I want the bigsap!!!!
PARRRRRRKER- I wish you could have been down here yesterday to see the sap run. I want you to focus real hard becouse Im only going to tell you this twice. ITS THE MOTHER RUN BROTHER!! We were definitely making history last night. I try not to shoot it to the tanker trailer becouse then I have to pump it back up but it ran so hard yesterday I had to becouse it was coming in faster than the R.O. could get rid of it. The belley releaser was dumping every couple minutes. Looked like the lines were clearing out in the morning but this was an actuall run. Coming cloudy from the trees though. Been warmer but I think it will straighten back out. Hope everyone is having fun. Bet even you northerers get a hard run today. Theron:lol:
spent last 2 days getting l/r pumps going. one bush at 26 inches, one at 24 and hope to get the last one working today. sap has been slow to get this done. found 30 adapters that leak have holes in them from when made. that was a pain now i have to check all 7000. more progress
What brand of adapters are you using Jeff?
cdl they have a small hole in the molding. found more this am arrrh.
:lol: Weve been getting an awefull lot of sap here last two days. Day before yesterday it was coming just off my hill faster than the R.O. could get rid of it which is over 300 gallons per hour. Im about 3000 gallons behind right now. Its in one section of the semi trailer. If I didnt have the trailer that 3000 would be on the ground no question. I just keep working up a batch and then cleaning the R.O. and repeat. Im actually getting a lot of things plumbed up better with the pumps and thats nice. Just trying to keep up and we are, Hope everyong is getting CRAZY, INSANE, BUCKETBLASTIN SAP!!! If you guys up north arent you should be soon. Theron
Sap Sunday just started to flow like it wants to show me what is got. If the weather forcast is correct I can expect sap like yesterday for the next two weeks. I haven't got enough to boil yet but if today and tuesday is as good as sunday I am boiling wensday as I can not let it get to far ahead of me. Things are goingto get intresting to say the least.
The BIGSAP started to show up finally. Best day Sunday in years. Finally got the vacuum system up to par. Running at 25" and holding! Replaced my CDL releaser with a new Laperier unit. Gained 4" vacuum with just that change. The old unit certainly had more leaks than I thought.
Now i've got to keep up with the sap. Already have a tank full at the woods and still have a few hundred gallons at home at the sugar house.
Theron hows it feel to get the big sap??? Nothing bettter than getting swamped!
Mark
Question for all of you.
What is the relationship between frost in the ground and BIG SAP.
Tell us if you have frost and if you are into BIG SAP
We have had sap running a bit for about a week, no big days yet. We still have frost in the ground though, and snow in the woods. Today it will get to 60, and stay above freezing for about 72 hours. That might do in the frost here.
Jeff, From my experience, frost plays a BIG role. We won't get any BIGSAP until that frost is nearly gone. I have a neighbor who does 1600 bags and he has a gently sloping north woods. I talked to him this morning and is holding off on tapping for a few more days, he says with no freezing at night and 60's, they'll just dry up early. Have you checked out the 2 week ? Weather doesn't bode well for a good year.
The old timers here figure that a year with too many thaws in the ealy months of winter affects the sap when this time of year comes around. They figure a good hard winter then spring is the best to have. Last winter it thawed once a week here and the harvest sucked so could be true.
Jeff,
We've still got frost in the ground here in the open and in the woods. Still have a good amount of snow. 18" in the woods 12" in the fields but we have some bare ground in the sunny and windswept locations. Our worst seasons since 1989 have been the years with 36"+ frost (took forever to thaw) and the years with no frost. Providing there were decent days weather wise for sap to run.
Once the frost is gone and the snow is gone we seem to end fairly quickly most years.
Just my opinion
Mark
plenty of frost in the ground here also and the sap is flowing at about a gallon a tap here. 150 gallons from 160 taps and no vac. I would say that is good for us here.
The trees out in the open seem to do the best. I have one tree starts up first and then the others follow. need to get rid of the snow around the trees in the woods to getthem moving.
For a lack of coming up wth my own words ( sorry patheron) I finally got BUCKETBLASTIN TSUNAMI BIGSAP. Holding tank is full gathering tanks are full could not keep up with it today. Finally got the holding tank boiled off enough to empty the last holding tank just to fill it up again. If it runs tomorrow which it will I'm in BIGSAP trouble. Gotta take 3 service calls and finish a 4 color press install tomorrow before I can get back to boiling. I guess I will be making a stop at TSC for another tank.
Jeff- I dont think that down here it runs very good till most of the frost is gone just like you said. Once the ground thaws out and then you get the temps it should run like heck. Youve got the power of high vac on your side so as soon as its thawed all you need is 33 degrees. We were getting unreal sap here to the point I was calling around for more tanks then yesterday it started slowing down. Its pretty warm and didnt freeze last night so its slowing down. Im working a batch up now and with the slow down I think I can get caught up tomarrow. It was cool to see the sap run like that. Been an exciting year so far thats for sure. You guys keep me posted on the BIG RUNS. Theron:) :)
I even had a tree that amazed me yesterday. Froze good last night again so I expect today will be good also. I expect some extra sap today again. Hopefully boil Wensday so that I can go to Lodge Thurs. night.
Here's the graph from Proctor Maple Research Center. You can see that the sap is ratcheting up every day. It will be off the charts today and tomorrow!
http://users.gmavt.net/perkins/pressure.jpg
Interesting research from Proctor.
One good thing with this warm up and slow sap: It motivates me to tap more trees. Then when does start to run, I get buried!!!! I do it like this every year.
With the much improved processing equipment, I should be able to handle it this year.
Sunday we took 1400 gal of 1.85% sap, RO'ed it to 10%, and ran it through the 3x12. No blower, no preheater. Did it all in 2.5 hours. Smiles at the Emerson house!!! With working out the bugs in the pumping system last week, I was expecting similar troubles in the sugar house. I was very pleasantly surprised that there were no big issues, just a very busy filter.
Jeff- Nice job on the BIGSAP!! Im very happy to hear that your wanting to tap more. Little update from the Zar. Ive really givin it my all. Been crankin out 80 gallons a day for a while now and right now Im 6000 gallons behind. Releasers both running 25 inches plus or minus a little. Havent had time to even look at the woods in about a week. I look like sh$#. Both elbows have severe tendinitus, havent had more than 4 hours sleep in several weeks, sugarshed looks like a syrup explosion, basically my health is in the toilet and just let me tell you BRING IT ON LORD, BRING IT ON!!!! Gonna take tomarrow off and do a marathon everything. R.O., boil, whatever. Pullin all the stops. If I can Im going to try to hit 1000 gallons tomarrow. Im sick of you guys pickin on me, runnin me down, sayin I dont WANNNNN ITTT bad enough, Im puttin this sap in the barrells if it kills me, I JUST DONT CARE!!! If I die before the season is out Ill be RUNNIN TUBE FORE JESUS!!!! Ill give you sugarmakers an update tomarrow night. Gonna drink some more boilin sodas. Theee(so much sap line you can see it from outer space)rooon.
I have a tree that gave me 5 US gallons today. I could not believe a tree of mine could actually pour sap out that fast. If the rest start up I will be swamped. Not supposed to freeze tonight will that affect the run any.
i cant believe it gave you US gals.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by KenWP
Trying to make it easyier on you guys and my one pail is in US gallons instead of liters.
Ken,
STOP TAKING OUR U.S. GALLONS!!!! We need them all down here! :D
TheCzarron, you go man. Jesus is pulling for you to make it down here so you can tap the heavenly Maples, Moses wants to try and part the sap in your big tank!!!
I am hoping to hear good reports on the barrel filling, and pint filling, and give a few of those myself soon.
Looks like the big run is over - for now. Although the temps stayed in the 40's last night, sap undeer vacuum stopped at around 9:00 last night and did not start up this morning. First time sap has stopped while the temps were above freezing this season. Looks like we wait until the next frreze.
I have boiled 8 out of the last 10 days and the wood pile is hurting. Sugar content has stunk - but season will probably deliver about average due to the sap sunami.
Not a drop here today either. Has to freeze thursday night and away we go again. My first boil today but am about 5 to 10 gallons short.
BIGSAPZAR UPDATE- Started today with 7000 gallons made 50 gallons of nice syrup and going to end the day with 7000 gallons. R.O. needs a real good bath. Going to try throwing everything against the wall again tomarrow and see if anything sticks. All the vaca I can take will be used up this week. Looks like some of the bushes down here are shutting down maybe. Not sure about mine it keeps on running and it doesnt look like its budding out and the syrup tastes real good. See what happens. Hope everyone is getting there fill of maple for the year. Theron
Though not much was happening Tues. night, I left the vacuum going, and Wed. am had about 300 gal from 700 taps. By this evening probably about 600 total. Buckets have finally slowed or stopped, so it feels good to bring sap home anyway, not that I'm boiling tonight. 3 or 4 nights till 4 am is getting old. So here I am at the computer at 1:30 when I should be in bed 3 hours ago, but I needed to get more drops made.
Tim
The sap has been running every day since 3/10. I even got a little bit on the 12th and 13th when the temps struggled to get above freezing. The extended forecast looks like sap weather until the end of the month. Now I know what Theron feels like and I too say BRING IT ON!
Not much going on here untill tomorrow. Never went below 40 again last night. The end of the month looks bad as they are forecasting above freezing temps at night for days at a time. Owell such is life. At least this temp should thaw out the other half of my trees not produceing sap yet.
I have a genuine SAPTASTROPHE on my hands,,tommrow will make 1/2 of my total for last year (in seven days) Got the blower working right on the evaporator-now I need to find alot more wood,,,
Parkkkkk(so much wood you could stand it back up and have a whole forest)eeer- WERE MAKIN HISTORY BROTHER, MAKIN HISTORY!!! Saptastrophe down here too. Things are looking up this morning here in Northeastern Pa. Almost cought up only 6000 gallons behind this morning and the R.O. is down. Looks like a good run day too. May hit a new record of 10,000 gallons behind, a personal best for me. Must be Ive had to do too much with too little. I think the membrane must be packed full even though Ive tried not to let that happen. Got a new one should be here this morning UPS. No prob they said they have pallets of them and overnight delivery guess Im all set. Keep up the good work. Im TRYING to pull my weight down here. I tapped in January youd think theyed slow down some time. Keep Marvin smokin! Theeeeron:lol:
Not supposed to go above freezeing today here. Quebec weather returned. But at least it froze I can hear those trees sucking sap up into those branches waiting for a warm day to pour them down into my buckets.
Finally got the sap tanks at the sugar house down to near empty. That was the good news. Tanks are full at the trees again and the wood shed is getting way down. Had to buy a couple pallets of kd pine to mix in to help stretch the rest of the wood. Also have my eye on the oak kitchen table (it's a bit to big for the room anyways!). Sugar content is still lower than I would like but need to make all the syrup I can.
Mark