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Well I got the last little run I was hoping for but that's about it was a pretty slow drip today yesterday was not too bad after I collect tomorrow will probably have gotten around the 70 gallon mark off about 70 taps since Friday afternoon. not the greatest but will have to do for a first run in my first year. Pulling taps out Monday. Now my real season starts up.
Today is the day that the clean-up begins. I collected a total of 90L over the weekend, courtesy of Thursday's blizzard. My final boil of 2017 produced 2L of light syrup. Probably the most flavourful light syrup I've ever made. Surprisingly, even though the silver maples had flowers on the trees, none of the sap was buddy. I tested each batch before adding it to the boiling pan just to be sure.
I'm at less than half of last year's total, and very happy that I also decided to pull out the drill in February like so many others of you in Ontario did. That saved my season for sure. This year took some finesse, some finger crossing and a lot of guidance from the life-long sugarers on the forum to reassure me about drilling that first hole in February.
Good luck to those further north. Hope you get some more good runs before you break out the power washer!
Way to go Karen!!! I tap in Feb every year, just because of the way this year played out. It's a little more work but helps the season total balance out.
Wow should I get the drill out. This weather is looking pretty good for sap flow. Not so good for my snowmobile season.
I am debating whether I should start tapping as well now. It does seem super early but this weather has me itching to go...
I am giving it 2 weeks then I will make the call. Hope the weather stays cold for a bit to be honest. Last year I put first taps in on family day weekend. That's early I thought but as others in my area were talking about tapping so did I. I was sure glad I did. Best runs of the year came early. Time will tell this year I guess.
I'm tempted as well but the forecast doesn't seem like the warmth will last. I'm planning on mid February as well to get going. I'm itching for the season as I've some tuning out this year and have all my parts ordered for a small home made RO unit. Plan to rap every tree I can find on my property lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Hkb82
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Welcome Paul! If you are tapping in Beeton you are only ten minutes from me. Looks like we'll be sharing the same tapping season calendar. Obviously the same crazy warm weather got me thinking about sugaring as well - hence the reason that I'm on the site tonight. hahaha Are you boiling over fire or propane?Quote:
Originally Posted by paulflikkema
Thanks Karen! That is great to hear you are so close by. Last year was my first venture into this and I am hooked. I am boiling over propane. I was looking into a barrel burner but will stick with the propane for this year again. One of the properties in my area tapped over the weekend. To me it seems way too early as from here on out for the next 2 weeks it is back to frigid temps. I keep checking the weather forecasts and will go based on that. Last year I tapped on the Saturday morning of Family Day weekend and had 120 liters of sap by the Monday morning. I tapped 6 trees with a total of only 9 taps. By Monday night I had 3 liters of syrup boiled down. I did one more batch that following weekend for another 3 liters and that was it for me as our house was under renovation and my wife didn't see it as a great use of my time to be sitting in front of a burner for that long doing "nothing" hahaha. This year I am planning on adding a few more taps/trees and doing a few more runs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Hello All!
We started tapping about a week ago, we are well on our way with about 7,000 in already, I figure about half done. We hope to finish off in the next week and half.
The warm-up was good to get all the snow out of the bush - made running around a whole lot easier.
Looking forward to the season, we have a ton more taps and have spent a lot of time rethinking our pumphouses, I am really excited to see how they run.