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*eyeroll* Ok, ok stop twisting my arm, I'll tap then!!! :) I have to admit that last night I dug around in the Maple Log and saw that Greg is right, not much sap gathered past mid-April. And also that in the winter most comparable to the one we've just had I tapped for only 1 month and still got enough to make 3 batches or so. I'll probably still wait til next weekend though, don't think the time is still quite right yet.
So I finally tapped! Too early? Maybe, but the suspense got the better of me. It's supposed to be positive temperatures all day tomorrow and I'm sick of waiting. So far 22 taps went in and we are going to put another 28 in tomorrow. We are on our last litre of 2015 syrup, and are getting too anxious to hold off any longer.
Only 2 of the taps were already wet when we drilled. Will keep posting progress..
Lesley 😉
Hey all
Well spent the day putting in my taps I couldnt wait any longer.
98 in total on the lateteral and main lines only about 25 to go on drop lines and jugs.
Thank goodness to very little snow in the bush this year but my sugar bush looks like a war zone
with sll the downed limbs and branches blocking my paths .Lol
Heres to a great season
Put 9 in yesterday and 4 more today. Things are looking good so far but I'm still waiting for the forest trees to thaw out.
I put in 51 drop lines and another 22 on buckets by week's end, I just need to grab some rope so I can tie some buckets to the trees really windy out.
Mark, I tied mine down too. Even though the thermometer said +2 out there I thought I was going to freeze to death. Sooooo windy.
ya i have all road side sap cows that their isn't much in the way of wind breakers with open fields on both sides i thought i was going to freeze. but a few of the sugar's were dripping.
I'm looking from the kitchen window and see some buckets 1/3 full !!! If this keeps up we could have a boil down tonight!! Just too exciting!
yes going to be warm in Eastern Ont. calling for plus 7 in the Brockville area starting to tap today.
Not that warm here in Portland yet.. -4 right now.. I would normally be tapped, but haven't finished the new arch yet!! Hope to test boil this week and tap next weekend.
Have a great season all.
Just put 18 taps in, all were running but 1, I tap this 1 tree every year in hopes that one year it will give me sap.... yet again this year drilled it and it was bone dry.
I have tapped my 50 trees as of 13:45 this afternoon. Most were damp but they don't appear to be dripping very fast. It's a bit of an odd weather day, at least compared to the forecast. It was +6C south of Peterborough this morning at about 10:00 so I rushed to tap near Stirling. But, when I got here at 11:45, it was only +1C. The forecast still was +8C for Stirling so I did the deed and tapped. But, as of 14:00, the temp still sits at +2 here. There's not usually much of a temperature difference between Peterborough and here but today is not a usual day. Oh well, taps are in and let's see what happens, maybe it will run into the night as the forecast shows the temperature staying above 0C. A happy start-of-season to everyone!
Didn't warm up too much today.Drilled one tree just to put an anchor in for the end of a sap transfer line,didn't even wet up,not surprising though as the snow is frozen hard holding us up,as well as the ice we crossed was rock solid.
It's now 18:00 and the temperature has now plunged to -4C (10 degrees colder than the hourly forecast). I actually think weather forecasts are pretty good for the short-term but they really really missed it today. It currently appears I could have waited a week to tap. C'est la vie!
We had 5 degrees today. Have 285 taps and collected over 500 litres of sap.
It is supposed to be +3 and warming overnight. Hoping to collect 300 litres tomorrow and I will start our first boil of 2016!
I really have to hand it to the AccuWeather station it was calling for +7c today, and the warmest it got was +3c in the middle of the night. By 6:30 this morning it dropped below and it just kept going down throughout the day, at one point AccuWeather was claiming it was +4 and it was -3 so much for their reporting. Nothing moved all day but it's going to get warmer again over night. SO we get a one day bump followed by another 8 days of minus weather. They keep hanging the warm carrot out for the warm up but they've got score card like the Leafs. Seems like a little closer to the lake folks are it's paying off for the sap running, well done!
https://vimeo.com/157072299
Running well here, just east of Frankford. 50 gals collected from ~150 trees.
Hehehe glad someone else said it! I've got everything all set to go, but no way am I tapping til next weekend. Frustrating but it helps that I've taken up yoga now, that helps me be more patient....slightly :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxJ
Relax. I sold my evap cause my new one was due last week !no show !! I hope it snows and freezes till April !!!! Lol
Mike
Yes today was certainly a disappointment given the predicted weather.. I'm not sure it ever got above 2+ in Inverary. And that was only before noon.. The rest of the day freezing! We collected 38 litres from 43 taps made nearup with that and are keeping our fingers crossed for the next 24 hours of more sap flow so we can cash in before another deep freeze is upon us.. Will continue to post progress.. Good luck to all!
Just checked the forecast. Looks like we are going to be bang on schedule with a March 9 tap date. Temps start to do the +3-5 daytime to -2 to -5 night time swing. Can't wait.
Lookin Good!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
Hear in the banana belt, I had to take off my long underwear and tapped in my shirt yesterday. We were above +10. Can't trust our ice anymore and its getting really muddy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce L
We got another 1200 taps in on Saturday which means we have only 500 left to go - a short morning's work. We had to wait until late morning to start tapping because it was too cold. It barely got above freezing all day and there was not a drip out of a single tap. Yesterday while areas close to Lake Ontario were +10 C or better we were frozen solid at -5 C! Fine with me - we need another day to be completely ready.
Tapping on Saturday was a real challenge. The ice storm from Wednesday had up to a 1/2" of ice on everything! There were lots of small branches down but all appeared to be already dead and the weight just dropped them to the forest floor - which meant a lot of lines frozen into the crust! It was debatable if it was more of a pain to tap with snowshoes on or just wade through it.
Whomever is sending us the extra 20cm-30cm of snow tomorrow can keep it - we've got more than enough thank you.
*scratching head* I just posted a pic to member gallery but not turning up...so may as well put it here...it came 12th place in a recent photo challenge where the subject was Obsession...Attachment 13428
Hey Folks,
Little closer to Kingston on 15 than Les, but we saw the same thing. Weather forecasted +7 but I think we may have reached +1 and then it dropped, actually warmed up through the night..
Found a relatively easy solution to my blow-about-the-yard-sap-bucket issue. I have hundreds of pucks, too much time in rinks as a player and now that my boy skates, but I digress...Anyway, I gorilla taped a puck to the lid of my offending buckets and guess what? Not a one has blown off yet...Yet, operative word, may need to reapply tape midway of the season, but we'll see, at least I'm not chasing them now...
Happy tapping everyone!
TurkeyJohn
Wind, snow, blow, blow, blow. That's Ontario In a hand basket. Test buckets were flowing at a rate of a drop every 10 seconds.
Susan, this is the funniest photo ever!! I love it😉Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
Turkey John, great idea on the pucks! Will probably follow your lead on that as we suffer from the constant bucket casualty syndrome also.
As for the syrup making.. We are currently doing our first boil down of 87 litres.. The weather is nuts - blowin' a gale! Will keep posting progress,
Les
Thanks Les, I had fun putting that shot together...if I didn't I wouldn't do it! And hopefully this wind will be gone by the time I finally get spiles in, if not I may try to get some pucks too and strap em down :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lespetras
I went and collected yesterday afternoon, collected 45 ltr's from my loving tree's, a few buckets were over flowing. I was surprised to say the least that I got that much. All the taps were frozen with sapsicles hanging off them, but when I knocked off the sapsicles they started dripping again.
Will have to go back over today and see if my buckets are still on the tree's, the wind around 4-5 pm was crazy around here for quite sometime last-night
Attachment 13448
So we cashed in our 87 litres of sap for a yield of 3050ml of syrup.. Sugar content 3.01%!
Looks like a deep freeze for now .. Then next week all positive temps! Hopefully maple season is not nearing the end! Otherwise we'll be hoarding our 3 litres of syrup with our lives!
well, weather is looking promising which pushes me to log back onto the maple trader! haha Tapping this sunday to be ready for next week. Looking forward to it like a little kid waiting for Christmas morning just like every year ;)
Nice work in Inverary! Kind of like cover art for Canadian Living magazine.
*waving* Hey there neighbour! Yeah looks like I'll be tapping Sunday too...should be over this stoopid cold by then and temps finally sound decent. And everyone, buckle down for the storm this evening...stay warm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle Baker
Thx Karen,Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Just like riding a bike second year around, looking forward to seeing your syrup pics also 😊
Lesley, looks like it will be at least five or six days before I can boil. I've got 61L in my storage tank but I think I'll wait until the weather calms down before I try to boil anything. Have you checked out the new forecast for next week? Looks like a sap tsunami to start off followed by a train wreck if the evening temps don't drop.
Yes, that's exactly what we think too. I mean the taps should be running strong for a few days, but what happens if no negative temps occur? I don't have the experience behind me but I thought the sap flow was completely dependent on the cold negative nights and warmer days... Can anyone shed some light on this subject? Like perhaps it'll just be a lull in flow until the temp goes below zero again ( however long that takes) because really unless the moths show up or frogs are croaking there wouldn't be any imminent buddy sap would there? Or am I getting ahead of myself?Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Lesley, in 2012 the season began abruptly here and we didn't have a single evening when the temps dropped below freezing. Ever. Without the freezing nights to recharge the trees the sap stopped flowing entirely after about ten days. Sure, we got some sap but it was a mere fraction of what an average season would yield. Let's not hope for a repeat of that.
Thx Karen,
Well let's keep our fingers crossed that it's not a 2012 repeat!
Your right we need the freezing at night. When it freezes at night the tress actually come under vacuum and pull the moisture into the tree through the roots. There have been some experiments where they have placed vacuum gauges into the sapwood and the trees draw about about a -2 vacuum. So when that stop happening there is no sap in the tree.