Tapping Elk. Co.

Tapped 40 trees Wed. Finished my woods with 66 more taps. My trees are mostly small soft Maple Put in 27 more taps in yard large Sugar Maples yesterday. 1 1/2 % sap run through a homemade RO to anywhere between 5 to 9%. settled on 6%. 9% makes syrup in short order, but takes a lot of sap and a considerable amount of time to get enough to cook. 6-6.5 works nicely for me. I don't think the large Sugar Maples have thawed yet, not much of a run yet. The smaller maples ran good yesterday and today. Hope for a good season. Let you know at the end.

Shut everything down today. Still had clear sap but had slowed down ,then when tightening the draw off valve on the pan, the collar broke off. Considering I was getting weary of collecting and cooking sap I decided to call it quits for this season. 22 gal made, which is down from last yr. Strange thing was I had 12 big sugar maples I tap and only one of them gave any sap this year. Normally the produce very well. Go figure!