Tapping Greyfox Farm 2013

With the prospect of 40 degrees tomorrow I tapped half a dozen today just to see what this season will bring. I'm tapping new trees this year; my woods was logged off about 30 years ago so the bush is all smaller trees and I'm giving the trees that I tapped the last two years a chance to rest. I'm at 800 feet elevation, North facing, and they're mostly reds so we'll see. Mine is a completly hobby operation so loss of revenue isn't a consideration, I just want to keep the bush healthy.
No matter what, I'm finishing tapping-in this Sunday. It's my wife's birthday on the 24th, and the Daytona 500. Best wishes Mark Martin. Oh yeah...and Shirley.

Spent the morning over at our friends house teaching her son and daughter-in-law how to run a simple tubing-to-bucket system. We tapped-in half a dozen which was about the extent of what was available. It was fun working with someone 30 years younger and showing them the ropes. This is something they NEVER would have learned back in Florida, and I'm glad to get them outside to enjoy winter.

Back here we're still not boiling. I've collected about a gallon block of ice from one tap and zip from the others, but there's some good looking days on the 10-day for next week, so I hope to be producing by the first weekend in March. Still not sure about how many I'll tap this year, best guess 20 or 25. TBD as the season dictates.

I was at the real job today and the snow was melting off the roof, coming down like crazy. I ducked out a little early so I could get home in time to see how well the test taps were performing. I came inside just long enough to charge the wood stove in the house and then headed out into the sugar woods. I got to the bucket that I put in last week that has three nice trees running into it, opened up the bucket, and reached in and dunked my hand into a bucket full or.....nothing. Dust. (sigh) Oh well, the ten-day looks good for the end of next week. Of course that was the same forecast as last week...and the week before...and the week before that. Maybe Memorial Day we'll get a good run. If not then, 4th of July for sure.

Temps are looking good next week

Just getting dribbles here and hoping for better runs next week.

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Originally Posted by MapleLady

Just getting dribbles here and hoping for better runs next week.

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Yeah, I think your right, it looks like we'll get the 40/25 degree split here starting next week as well. I'm just antsy to get things rolling and my natural pessimism sometimes takes hold. It looks like this season MIGHT be a more typical season than last year. Good luck to you "down-state."
Speaking of pessimism,a pessimist, an optimist and an opportunist walk into a bar. The bar tender pours a drink. The pessimist argues that the glass is half empty. The optimist argues that the glass is half full. The opportunist reaches over and drinks it. (drum kick, ba-dum-bum!)

Same here slow trickle of sap. This is my second season and I find myself getting impatient after making a half gallon of syrup last weekend. Based on the weather forecast and if the snow holds off, I may get around to finish putting my last 20 taps in.

Looking at the predicted temps for this week, I think I will finish putting in my taps today -- only 10 - 15 more over here. Hoping for a small boil by Tues. I think with such an early warm up last year, my mindset is that it is time. Historically, it's still on the early side. Time will tell, but we'll be ready over here! :)

Good luck guys. I just got back from tapping-in a section of new trees. Nothing was running, as expected, but I'm in good shape for the start of the season, which should be next week up here. The last time I looked at the forecast was yesterday and it was calling for 3" of snow, so if we get another -7 inches we'll be right on target. It's noon and I've got a good 10" with no sign of stopping. The snowpack should be good for the trees once they wake up.
On a separate subject, today is the Daytona 500 and my wife's birthday as well. Naturally we'll be celebrating here. I have plenty of outside work to do, but I came inside to spend the rest of the day at home. It's important to celebrate these milestones. Oh yeah, and happy birthday too.

I got home today and went out to the house to see how we did. It was a good day for this time of year; we got 8 eggs from 16 hens... Wait, that was from the hen-house, not the sugar-house. I clumped out to the sugarbush after dark and amazingly, magically, and happily we have a run! Not all the trees were running, but I have enough to do a first boil on Thursday. There were a few trees still dripping tonight at 7:00. I hope everybody else had a good day today as well. Maybe it's finally "game on!"

I'll take it! It's not great but it beats what we've done so far this year, which is a big hat full of nothing. Despite yesterdays overcast, todays 34 degrees and wind, the sap gods smiled on me (or at least smirked a little) and I pulled about a quart per tap on gravity. Impressive? Nope. Better than nothing? You bet. Tomorrow we boil. (band plays hallalujah). Finally the season starts. Hope everyone else is doing well too.

With a high temp yesterday at the sugarhouse of 41, no wind, and a little Sun here and there, things went well. I started to boil with the few gallons I had collected and by noon the laterals un-froze and the sap ran great. My gravity system netted about 1/2GPT yesterday afternoon, and that went in the tank as well and I netted my first syrup of the season. I noticed a few things, and I was wondering what everyone else was seeing.

1) My sugar content seems low. I don't have a sap hydrometer so this is based on yield, but it seems lower than normal.
2) The syrup is darker than I've seen for an early run.
3) Seems like the sugarsand is high this year.

I'm not complaining, this promised to be a MUCH better year than 2012, but I just wondered what everyone else was getting. Good luck,

Doc

Low temp last night was 28 and the high today was 42. The sap ran o.k., and I boiled off what I had. The first run was MA, this run came in as a nice light "fancy". I've already pulled half as much sap this year from 16 taps as I did all of last year from 30. The only down-side is my sugar content is lousy. Gotta bitch about something....

Had a day off from the real job yesterday and got a chance to boil off all the sap I had in inventory. It's been a nice slow-and-steady year up here so far. Between working for a living, running my trap lines and sugaring I've been one busy old bastard. Today we had a high temp of 40 and a little bit of sun, but the maple Gods looked the other way and I only pulled about a quart per tap. The good news, the sugarsand is back down on this last run, and I'm still making a nice light "fancy" syrup. The bad news is the sugar content of the sap is still low. I should have enough to get on it again on Thursday. No matter what, its still better than 2012. Good luck all.

Doc

Radio room, send this Telex:

"Attention Captain Joseph Smith of RMS Titanic, and all ships at sea. Avoid waters in the vacinity of Greyfox Farm. Hugh bloc of ice sighted, believed to be solid block of maple sap. Unlikely to melt until some time late July. Thought to be from sap storage tank from maple syrup production plant."

RMS Carpathia, out. Godspeed Titanic.

The sap is running a little today, I boiled off a few buckets of ice so I'm ready for the sap tsunami that I think is coming this weekend...hopefully. In the mean time, here's a few shorts clips from the past couple of weeks, when we had a visitor.
Our guest arrives
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIjUgQ5VwcA
His welcome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47U6uZTt5o
His new home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yMaGW8cKxE

Today the second half of the season kicked in. Despite a North wind, the trees opened up and yielded about 1/2 GPT today, and the forecast for the week ahead makes the Johnstown flood look like a day at the wading pool; wear your chest waders and a life jacket when you head into he wood this week so you're not washed away by the flood of sap!

I got a chance to visit a few neighbors sugarhouses this weekend. This Sunday Kim's place was packed with parking overflowing down the road. Hutchinsons had a lively turnout as well. Thanks to Russ at Red Roof Maples for taking his time to show me his operation top to bottom. Hopefully everyone had a good maple weekend.

Doc

Perhaps it was all the excitement of maple weekend, or maybe it was the good runs I've been having, but I had a maple sugaring dream Sunday night. In my dream I was visited by Our Lady of Husquavarna, Goddess of chainsaws. She told me that she'd bumped into the Goddess Accuweather and they'd chatted for a while. "Doc, I probably shouldn't tell you this," she said, "but with what she's got in store for you for the next two weeks, let me give you a tip. Old man, no matter how much wood you've got, it ain't enough!" That insight pushed me into the woods yesterday, 345 in hand, dropping and cutting small-ish dead standing timber, while tending the evaporator as well. It was a great day to be in the sugar woods. The sap was running pretty decent and I was able to boil for 4 hours to process my incoming flow for the day, I netted out MORE wood in the shed at the end of the day than when I started, and my sugar content is back to a respectable level. I'm making a nice medium/dark with good flavor. Hope the next two weeks are good for everyone else as well.

Doc

Everyone knows that a vaccum applied to a tap will enhance sap flow, so I thought that perhaps some positive pressure, strategically applied, might have an advantage as well. You see I tapped early this season and here at the tail end of the season my sap flow has been low. I thought that if I were to give a short, sharp, shock UP the tree perhaps I could break free one last good run.

I went to my town library and came across a textbook from the 1940's called "The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives" and read up on some energetic materials that might be of some use. With this new-found knowledge I went to my local chemical supplier and spoke with a particularly agitated and surly fellow who kept muttering things like "crackpot", "B.A.T.F", and "Homeland Security." After giving him seven forms of ID I took my raw materials back to the sugarhouse and cooked up a batch of "wake-up juice."

First of all, let me explain that the metric system has always been confusing to me. I assumed that the notation "ml" meant "metric liters", not "milliliters", so the batch of product that I cooked up was about three orders of magnitude on large side. This became apparent to me shortly. Undaunted, I packed the tubing with my home made nitro and let her rip.

My memory of the next several hours is rather fuzzy. On the one hand there were a few positive results:

1) Next year my lines should flow quite freely. My 5/16" tubing now averages approximately 3" in diamiter , although there are rather a lot of holes and burned spots.
2) I saved many laborious hours of tap pulling as the pressure wave passing through the lines at 4000 meters per second popped off all the taps at once.

The down side is that the experiment didn't help the sap flow. It seems that the cellular structure of the maples channeled the pressure wave up to the tip of the branches and blew all the buds off the trees, resulting in a red carpet of buds in my sugarwoods about 2" thick. You can see it from Google earth, just look for the two acre red circle surrounded by the yellow tape which reads "police line, do not cross."

And just a reminder, remember today's date....April Fools......

Doc

How did you get on with this post.

Last year I was done on March 19th; today, April 4th, I pulled 3/4 GPT. Not only is this a much better year than last year weather-wise, but this year I'm using the seasonal CV taps. So far, in my cold North facing woods, with small trees which are 90% reds, I've netted 6 GPT so far. I tapped-in on February 28th and they're still running strong. I'm sold.

Even with no hard freeze last night I still drew 1/2 GPT today, and the low for tonight and tomorrow looks like the mid 20's here. Some of the buds are starting to swell, but no buddy taste to the sap yet; it's still coming in nice and clear. Still in the game...yeah!

Doc

Go Doc go! I'm still going too but it looks like the end is near!

Done. No more freezes in sight so I pulled 'em yesterday after gathering the last few gallons. A couple of the bigger trees were still dripping and the sap I gathered was crystal clear with no off flavors. I boiled-down what I had and I'll finish it off on the stove tonight. I netted just under 6-3/4 GPT of sap which is good for me from my smallish reds in a North-facing woods. All in all it was a good year. Next year I'm going to try to dramatically improve my set-up, with a real evaporator and I hope to up the tap-count to 50 plus-or-minus. Best wishes to everyone for the off season, see you guys again next February.

Doc