Vernon County

Irish Ridge sorry you took that big fall, hope everything is still in its right place. You know there are other ways to check the buds on those maples then on your back. This love of maple can be dangerous, so far this season I rolled the snowmobile. and landed on my tail a number of times getting the main line down our hillside, all ice little snow. Saturday morning will be our first boiling, so I will be off the grid until Monday eve. The warm weekend and Monday will shorten our season again. Looks like your tapping early may have been the right move. Take care.

Hi Irish Ridge.... I hope you are feeling ok after your weekend fall, and, that you didn't spill any sap in the process:).
By Sunday most of the snow on our north facing slope had melted and was nice to walk on soft leaf litter. We boiled 40 gallons down on Saturday and I turned around and gathered 25 more gallons from 20 taps on Sunday afternoon. Most trees were running CF (crazy fast = 2 drops/second) or F (fast = 1 drop/second). So... I'm back home in Madison for work and have decided to take off Thursday to do another boil. My set up is as humble as yours so I have to boil when the weather is right. Thursday looks good and I'm expecting to have a lot of sap by then. Around the cabin am enjoying the sounds of Barred owls, coyotes, turkeys, Pileated woodpeckers and all sorts of birds that come to the feeder near our sugaring setup. I have a neighbor who has come to be my sugaring mentor and who passed on his refractometer to me. Having fun with that and is a big step up in technology for me! Doing my best to keep tapping to scale with my set up though its not for lack of maples, they are everywhere that I turn on our property. Maybe when I'm retired.... Big winds coming. Stay safe in the woods.

Hi Lulugrein and Irish Ridge, Well I am back from the sugar bush.and very tired, Saturday we cooked 335 gal sap, took 115 gal sap to make sweet water so we ended up with 6.8 gal unfinished syrup. 9.15 to 6.00 then cool down and clean up so 8.00 supper. Sunday morning we went up top to gather but decided to wait until Monday. Sunday the red wing black birds showed up My helpers went home so Monday morning I started gathering at 8.30 until 3.00 total 550 gal sap guess we will have some serious evaporating to do. all our snow and ice melted away, now plenty of mud in the valley could the hear first robins, geese, sand hill cranes,owls saw some deer also. Our trail cameras had a number of bucks on them should drop their racks soon. Also Sunday spent some time cutting more fire wood for next syrup season. Hope the high winds spares our trees and pails. keep checking in .

I am in La Crosse County 17 mi. east of La Crosse. Started boiling yesterday (Monday) at 5:00. Got just about done by 3:00 but had to quit because of wind. Gust were so strong that they would actually blow the fire out in my arch. Fire and smoke in the sugar shack. Even changed the top of my stack by putting a wind directional swivel top on it. Didn't make any difference. Have lived on the ridge tops all my life and haven't seen it that windy. Went down to collect and picked up 200 more gallons. If there are 40 mph gust and sustained winds at 30mph I don't know if I will be able to boil today or tomorrow. How long will this sap keep before it spoils at these temps?

Hi Clem3, Wish I had an answer to your question. All I have are a few ideas. I was in the same spot yesterday. I started boiling outside yesterday at 6 a.m. in the mist (but it is a warm mist). My operation is se up just below my ridge top hidden in some pines I planted for a windbreak/privacy. I heard that wind whipping over my head all day. In fact when I set the operation up I placed it so the prevailing west and south winds work to my advantage. I try hard to keep ash out. Back to yesterday. So its warm and windy. I want all my sap boiled. Don't want warm sap. I run up to the house, wind is really whipping up there. Wife shows me color radar. Instead of the normal green rain coming I see yellow and red bearing down on me. I want to be shut down, and inside when this thing hits. Now what do I do with my last 7 gallon bucket of sap. My wife finds the last snow on the property and say put that around it. I said, no it will be gone by morning with the rain.

My idea is to run it down to our pond. There was just a small floating ice surface covering about half of it. I put on my waders and set it in the pond about 3/4 up the bucket and then weighted it down. Worked Great. The ice is all gone this morning but it is still ice cold. My other idea was to put ice in sealed plastic bags and at least get some cold in the sap. Not sure how long the ice would last but it would be a bit colder. Do you have a spring on your ridge? With this rain, there might be enough runoff. That is another idea that would work as a temporary solution. If I really get behind, my father in law down the road has a meat cooler on his farm. It is only used for hanging deer in the fall but that also works. Not sure if you have a connection to someone with a cooler (local neighborhood bar, butcher, maybe).

To answer your question though, I don't know how long you can go. I am just too new into this addiction and have always just worked through the night until I have caught back up. I am thinking it is cool enough again though that you will be alright. Good luck this spring.

Hi Lulugrein, I have time to type a bit as I watch my sap boil on my gas stove in the kitchen this morning. Yesterday was a real rodeo. This mornings bucket check brought a smile and a sigh. Sap still flowed well from Sunday afternoon until this a.m. So now another 100 gallons gathered today and 7 more gallons resting in my pond. Should be done "finishing" by noon and then I have to decide whether to start up again or wait until tomorrow. The wind is crazy again today.

Just a couple of thoughts. 1) I think that I am going to "borrow" the phrase "sap on" from Mr. Sugar Maple unless he claims it. I love it. 2) I now have a new scale to use in the spring when speaking sap flow with fellow members of Mapletrader. My question is what is the name of your scale and does it only have CF and F as flow rates. I plan on using the terms with others locally as well and then responding with "everyone in the business knows this language" when they question the meaning of the initials. 3) Happened to be by my pond after dark last night and the peepers were letting all their friends know a storm was approaching. Spring is here. 4) Finally, as I collected sap this morning I again noticed the sap is not nearly as clear as two weeks ago....is the end of the 2017 season near? Maybe.

Sap on!

Hi Irish Ridge. Yes to your question about other rates on the scale though I hope to not use them often. M (meandering = 1 drop every 2-3 seconds) and NWL (not worth listening). I'm running back over Wed night to boil on Thursday as I'm sure most of my taps continued to run CF and if that is the case then I need to get some of the sap boiled before Saturday. Friends coming to the cabin. I'm sure they can help me with naming the scale. Stay tuned...

I have a question about your reference to sweet water. What are you actually doing with it?

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Originally Posted by Mr Sugar Maple

Hi Lulugrein and Irish Ridge, Well I am back from the sugar bush.and very tired, Saturday we cooked 335 gal sap, took 115 gal sap to make sweet water so we ended up with 6.8 gal unfinished syrup. 9.15 to 6.00 then cool down and clean up so 8.00 supper. Sunday morning we went up top to gather but decided to wait until Monday. Sunday the red wing black birds showed up My helpers went home so Monday morning I started gathering at 8.30 until 3.00 total 550 gal sap guess we will have some serious evaporating to do. all our snow and ice melted away, now plenty of mud in the valley could the hear first robins, geese, sand hill cranes,owls saw some deer also. Our trail cameras had a number of bucks on them should drop their racks soon. Also Sunday spent some time cutting more fire wood for next syrup season. Hope the high winds spares our trees and pails. keep checking in .

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Hi Lulugrein, sweet water question The first time we flood our evaporator with sap it tales about 100 gallons or so to sweeten up the system before we start getting maple off the finish pan. then at the end of the day when we run out of fresh sap, we drain the pans into buckets for the next run. then pour the sweet water back into the evaporator, that way we start making syrup almost right away. at the end of the season I take the 25 gallons of sweet water home and finish it, makes about two gallons of syrup.

Well I gathered 720 gallons of sap this week, so sat morn we will start cooking. should take about 18 to 20 hours? I ran out of storage so had to leave 40 pails with sap on the trees. Funny thing, first we were trying to keep the sap cool, now trying to keep the sap from freezing. thought all that wind would blow my buckets off the trees but all had sap in them so they stayed in place. will be gone until Monday eve will let you all know how we did. Remember to change your clocks ahead, SAP ON