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Don't give up yet guys - we have at least one more week if not 2 - there will be dry days for sure - like yesterday - but that just gives the trees time to recover. I ALMOST pulled my taps too early last year - was all set to go and had a last minute distraction. I made more syrup the week after than I had the 3 weeks before.
I'm further south than most of you- I'm sure I've got another 2 weeks to run.
I hopefully agree with you. A couple years ago, I thought it was done; warm weather, moths, yellow sap and I was sick of working in the mud and water.
I pulled them out, washed them and put all my stuff away. Then there was a
heavy snow two days later and bang, I missed the best run of the year the
other guys said. They say a freeze tonight after the rain, clear tomorrow, and rain again on Wednesday.....
I think vacuumm is paying for itself right now. I got 1100 gallons of sap yesterday and 1400 gallons each of Saturday and Friday with no freeze-up to speak of. The pumps were on all night last night and we'll boil what we get tomorrow. I'm hoping to drag things out as long as possible but we're into amber syrup now and will need some snow to bring the colour back.
We cooked only amber on Sunday here too. All the bags and buckets were dry. I did not want to run the peristaltic pump for nothing on Sunday .. those hoses are expensive.
Got a little Gast pump the pulls 28" on the bench. We'll rig that next year for continuous running and use the peristaltic pump as a releaser pump.
I think it's over here, no frost last night. It could have been a better season but I filled all of my orders. I think I'll end up at .6 of a litre per tap.
Having a great year here in Northumberland County. We're over the 1 L/tap, and hope to get a final run today !!
Good freeze here, about -5. Should turn it on for one more hurrah
Talked with Dick O'Brian last night, who is NW of Shelbourne about 50 km and he has heard of nobody getting budy yet.
Hopefully last night's cold temps mean a couple more good days. I praying we can drag it out through the weekend so we can get close to 1L per tap.
For those of you who don't get the weekly OMAFRA updates here's the link to this week's info:
http://apps.omafra.gov.on.ca/scripts...le.asp?ID=1647
Brent all 10 of my soft maple's have full buds so i just move my taps all our hard maple have no sign of budding yet we just need the temps to work in our favor!
Did not freeze here last , but JJ said it would. (JJ is our weatherman on CTV),
so no sap again. Not giving up quite yet, hang in there Harold.
Almost started to clean up but the temps went down to -5 last night and my buckets are 1/2 full today. It's probably about 100-150 litres out of 48 taps definately worth burning some more wood . I figure with this batch I should hit the 30 litre mark for finished syrup. I'm pretty happy with that as I was late getting the taps in (missed a 2-3 day run) and I only had 33 taps up until 2 weeks ago. Thanks for all the info folks it made it all a little easier and way more fun.
Just collected 40 gals from Sunday till today.
Had a good look at the trees around here no sign of buds yet.
Nothing here since saturday now. Was supposed to freeze last night and nothing happend as it stayed at 34 degrees and is supposed to freeze tonight but temp is holding at 38 degrees. Was fun while it lasted anyways. I really thought that I would have a different experience then what this year brought me but nothing I can do about it now.
I think the sap God's have arrived and blessed us with over 300 gallons! I feel a boiling marathon coming on! even with no freeze last night at 2pm today every thing just let go, so keep the faith guy's it looks like things are going to get fun!
The Caledon Hills got down to -5 last night and about +6 today. So far we've got 420 US Gal, and lit the fire. Still got another Gator load to bring in which will get us near enough to call it 500 on the day.
The first stuff we have drawn off is looking pretty dark. Might be Grade B. Never made any of that before.
All in so far this year 15,000 litres of sap. Beats last year by a H U G E margin. An the blessed little RO taught me how to use it and has saved 1/2 the boiling time.
Good fun. Loved every minute, except scraping the pans clean.
We ended up with 3,000 gallons of sap today. The syrup is quite dark but still has good flavour. Hopefully we can get a few more good days like today to push us over the top!
Ennis great stuff 3000 gal !
I was thrilled to bring in 490 today. Boiled some. It was pretty dark but tasted great.
Just looked at the 5 day forecast. Not one more freezing night till a week today. We're toast for the year.
Brent sorry to hear your near the end were hoping to hold out for 2 more weeks still sitting with 2' of snow in the bush good thing the hill side is facing north it has a slower melt but our fields are dry.
Ennis glad to hear you had a great run today we hope to see you at the summer tour.
Thanks Brent. Total for the day was 75 gallons made so obviously the sugar content is still above 2%. It's amber but still has good flavour.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brent
It froze last night and is supposed to freeze again tonight. I should have another big day ahead of me! I've still got a chance to get to 1L per tap if this keeps up.
Looking forward to meeting you in July.
Martin Ennis
Is it worth boiling cloudy sap? I collected today and got 200 litre of clear but I kept aside an additional 40 litres of cloudy sap. It's not as cloudy as I saw it at the end of last years run but I don't want to ruin the 200 and the concentrate I have in the pan. I did put the lines back in the pails though because I've been told the cloudy stuff is good enough to ferment in the pan to clean it.
Normally when it goes cloudy or milky the steam will start to smell and the syrup will taste like cr*& . Bin der, dun dat, more dan once.
We got lucky today. Don't think we should have had a run but we got 60 gallons from the bags and buckets (325) and 80 gallons on the new tubing (150 taps ) Does a little vac help ... I'm sold.
We gathered another 2800 gallons of sap yesterday from what ran on Wed and Thurs. Sugar content has dropped below 2% but we still made 2 more drums of amber. Hopefully this will drag on longer - I've got 5 empty drums left in the corner that are starting to feel lonely!
Those 5 empties may be lonely for 11 months. This warm rain is likely to screw us all up good. Sounds like you guys are in the groove on your own this year.
I pulled the buckets and bags last night and dumped 150 gallons that was a bit milky in the buckets. NOTE to self. ... clean buckets half way through the season next year.
This has been our best season ever. Just had to hammer out another order for several hundred more cans and bottles.
Reading between the lines ... and your name, I would guess your family is Mennonite. You're a long way from St Jacobs if that's the case.
Nope - Irish, 5th generation in Canada. No plain black cars or horse drawn buggies for this farm boy! I went to the University of Waterloo and did a couple work terms in the area so I think you're thinking of the surname "Ens" or some variation thereof.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brent
The one benefit we have is being on the eastern shore of a good sized lake. The predominant west wind blows cool air off the lake and when the forecast calls for anything close to zero we get a freeze up. Typically we get 2 C colder overnight than what the weather forecast calls for.
The syrup we made yesterday was halfway between the medium and amber samples in the colourimeter with good flavour. Surprisingly, it filtered fairly easily. With bulk prices as strong as they are we'll make every drop we can! A couple more good days and we can get to 1L per tap.
We got real good tasting stuff the last few days. Half way between medium and amber.
=============
We have a bunch of customers from the Mennonite community and almost all of them are Martins. So do you subscribe to the southern Ontario theory of tapping on St Patty's day or do you hit the taps ?
I still have no buds yet so with the forecast for next week below freezing every night I guess I know what I'll be doing Easter weekend :)
You may luck in up there.
I'll put osme buckets back out on Monday to see what happens.
Sounds like you guy's maybe back in the game next week and may get a few more run's we wish you all the best!
-1 and snow squalls blowing in off the Bay, calling for snow Monday and Tuesday so keeping my fingers crossed. I cant boil today as I have no power so no lights and no blower. I could stretch so cords together for light but it is nasty around here right now there is always tomorrow.
I know how you feel Jerome in the last 3 hours we gotten 3" of snow and the wind is not letting up any and this is going to last till late tonight I have 320 gallons to boil I run a 12v blower so were going to go up into the bush and give it a try. It's just nasty out their! if the weather keeps this up we may just boil till the end of April!
They are calling for a bit of snow here also. I could use a cold nippy night. For tonight I have 3 different forecasts and they all show different temps. One 32,one 30 and one 29. I pick the 29 one but for some reason it does not work that way.
Ken it's like the lottery, you buy in and take your chances!
Any of you think that the weather is this way because of the volcano in Alaska that is putting ash into the air? Our weather man for what it is worth said it would lower temps over us .
Not sure about that but we just ran off 4 gallons of medium and we still have 300 gallons of sap to go!
Did not freeze again last night, but there is snow on the ground this morning. Let's hope it is that famous "sugar snow" and finally get the
big run that has not come yet.
Not sure if it froze here or not. It could have just snowed a bit. I was up at 1 and it was still 36 then last night. But the car window had what looked like frost slumped at the bottom of it unless it was a bit of snow.
*^%E#$*(^)&_^*#&#$()& I am under a snow fall warning we are to get 15-25 then squalls I think this is the first time I put the blower on the tractor in a t shirt. I did manage to get 60 gallons through the evaporator it is just finishing up now. oh well the season looks like it will be extended.
Way to go Jerome it dose look like the season will go on, well we made 10 & 3/4 gallons this weekend we went from amber back to medium almost back to light sap still running here and it's 930pm the gravity feed sure does work well. best of luck to you all and we will be boiling well after Easter !!!!!!!!!
the Elmvale maple syrup festival is on the 25 there might be real sap in the evaporators this year.
Even after the snow yesterday morning, the sun never came out, so no sap
again.There was a good freeze last night, but still dark and cloudy with rain
in the forecast today. But I will not give up, yet. Glad some guys are still getting good runs up west.