Is anyone getting ready to tap soon. We had a couple days in the middle of January when the trees were probably flowing but we weren't prepared for them. Probably going to tap the trees the first week of February.
Printable View
Is anyone getting ready to tap soon. We had a couple days in the middle of January when the trees were probably flowing but we weren't prepared for them. Probably going to tap the trees the first week of February.
What part of Iowa? We are NE.
Might be two weeks for me to start. We have like 24” of snow and 10-20 below zero at night the next few days.
Way below zero with windchill so I'm waiting. Maybe by towards the end of the month. In the mean time, Ginger or Maryann?
We're in East Central Iowa. This polar vortex has really put the sugar season on hold for the last 2 weeks. But with the Temps improving we are going to have all our trees tapped on Saturday 2/20/21 and hope that mother nature starts playing nice.
We tapped trees today. Located between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. About 100 taps total some small trees (10-24 inches in diameter) in the sun were already dripping.
Today we collected 40 gallons of sap and are doing our first boil tomorrow.
Tapped 30 trees today and most were running good. A lot of snow on the ground 2 plus feet in places. Had to drag a sled with all my gear to tap.
All 100 taps are in now, mostly silvers. Nothing running yet. Ted
Hey t-bear! I'm back, good to see your still here! took the last 2 years off. Gotta a little time finally. Gonna pop some holes this week!!!
I put in probably 50 taps in south central Iowa over the weekend. The ones in town ran some but it sounds like the weather the rest of the week is going to get them started. I worry about it getting to warm too quick.
Collected 70 gallons yesterday a good start. I still have quite a bit of snow on the ground and it’s been holding are temp down. 3/2/21 last Tuesday all my buckets were froze solid and took 2 days to unthaw.
Another 55 gallons of sap today and hope to cook it down Tuesday. Are snow is almost all gone bought time😀
Hey IowaSap! Welcome back! And upmep! Dang, I'm glad to see your both making steam this year. Hunter went and got himself a real job so I'm a one man band now. He did come up and boil a day with his dear old grandpa so I'm grateful. I think I'm going to pull the plug today, it looks like trying to hang in there will cause more problems than I'll ever make up in syrup production. Even losing a week or ten days on the front end, due to the deep freeze in February, and losing a week or so on the tail end, due to the warm up in March, I'm sitting on 9.5 gallons. How's everybody else doing? Have fun, Ted
Finally got a decent run. Gotta love the spring snow runs! Sitting at 200 gal. Off 50 taps so far. It was looking pretty bleak till today. This week should be good.
Put out 200 taps on March 3rd; All on buckets. Had fourth collection today. Probably got 350 to 375 gallons of sap. So far we bottled about 25 gallons of syrup. In general has been OK but muck darker than last year. Probably not as good a ratio either. May get one more gathering this weekend, but from the weather report that looks like the end of it. Obviously will get less syrup than last year when we got ~50 gallons; This years is muck darker too.
Good luck to all. It's good to see more Iowans becoming sugar makers. For a long time it seemed to be a dying art in this state.
Iowa Tapper
Ended up with about 7 gallons finished this year. Weather made things tough for me this season there’s always next year.