Hi All,
I'm in Mercer and things are incredibly slow, very little dripping for my 75 taps. I make my route with my snowshoes on and get very little reward. Getting impatient, maybe things will improve this week.
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Hi All,
I'm in Mercer and things are incredibly slow, very little dripping for my 75 taps. I make my route with my snowshoes on and get very little reward. Getting impatient, maybe things will improve this week.
I hope the weather forecast changes as looks like it might be over after this weekend for Merrill area. Was hoping for another 2 weeks. Only had 3 boils so far this year. Might be lucky to hit 8 gallons this year on 31 taps when I have done almost 12 gallons on that many taps the last couple years.
Bryan
I'm at zero boils. Many of my trees have not started to produce. Certainly worried about the "no freeze" at night conditions I am seeing in the 10 day forecast. Going to keep hanging in there and see what happens.
My 16 year old son went up and collected last night ahead of the busy easter weekend, he boiled some last night and will finished today boiling to get home before our exchange student from Germany comes tonight. He collected only 62 gallons on the 31 taps for the week. Nothing crazy yet for runs, but looks like things will be over after this weekend. Temps are going to rise into the 70's this next week and no freezing at night after saturday or very few days of freezing at night that it is not worth the hassel with the warm temps. Only at 293 gallons collected for the year usually we get about 450 to 475 gallons in a season on those taps. Guess we will see where we are at Monday when we go up to finish boiling from the weekend run and pull taps.
Bryan
Got a really late start here in Sugar Camp WI. Tapped 21 trees yesterday and about half dripped. Snow is still 2 feet deep so I had to blow the road open to get into the trees. Temps have been warm for over 3 weeks now and other tappers in my area are tapped in a few weeks ago and are boiling. Their trees are in more open parklike areas but our trees are in a more crowded shaded woodlot. Usually I don't get a good run until at least 2 weeks later than my friends. Hope the warm days coming don't shut things down too soon. Jay
Crazy year so far. We are in the snow pile around Winchester. Still 2.5 ft of snow in the woods as of 4/1 when we tapped. Had to shovel a 40 foot long corridor through a 5 foot deep snow bank just to get to our stove/shack. Mercer Maple, we feel your pain. We put in 57 taps, and as of 4/5, we had a scant 50 gallons of sap. Heading out tomorrow to see what squeezed out of the frozen ground over the last few days. Then it looks like we'll be done after only about 5 total days of sap flow for the whole season. Our friends and family are going to have to get used to dressing their waffles with jam and whipped cream. The good news - we'll have plenty of firewood ready for next year.
That's an awful season twosaps. I feel your pain but we had it a little better in the northeast. I am headed up to my woods tomorrow to try to save the couple of gallons i have hanging on pails before the 80's come on wednesday. I think there is still snow around tio pack around barrels i collect in. Crazy we had 6 inches of new snow fall saturday. It looks like it might dip back to freezing othis weekend but i am pulling taps on saturday anyways. We had 4 decent weeks and 1 week of frozed solid sap. Still got the 4wd atv stuck in the snow every week so far. I was supprised when i tapped in early march most trees were dripping even though the base was completely covered with snow. I think the warm january kept the frost in the ground to a minimum. I am still waiting to see what a "typical" spring is as every sap season for the past 3 years has been radicaly different.
Not sure there is a typical season.Quote:
Originally Posted by MajorWoodchuck
My dad went up yesterday morning to collect and boil what ran since friday and collected 88 gallons on the 31 taps. He said the trees were still dripping yesterday even though the last freeze was saturday night. He will do one final collection today while he pulls the taps for the year. Sugar content was mostly 2.5% in the buckets but he had one or 2 buckets that were 1.8%.
Bryan
Well the collection today was not much and my father decided to not boil it so finished the season at 381 gallons of sap collected, have not bottled yet so do not know the number of gallons of syrup made. Our sap content is usually higher than 2%, but if you just do quick math we should end up in the 9.5 gallon range. Taps are pulled and cleanup begins.
Bryan
Hard to resist these March like temperatures, but I'm not falling for this brief warm-up. Tentative plans are to tap some time around the second week of March. I have a week's vacation end of March, and hoping sap's flowing. I've had the same week off the last two years, and NOTHING!. Last year too cold, the year before too warm. I'm starting to feel like Goldilocks of the syrup world.