We will be ready for a tsumani next week! Tapping will be done in a few more hours on Sunday, lines walked, vacuum pumps humming and tanks washed and ready to rock! I want 1/3 of our season's syrup in drums by the end of next week!
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We will be ready for a tsumani next week! Tapping will be done in a few more hours on Sunday, lines walked, vacuum pumps humming and tanks washed and ready to rock! I want 1/3 of our season's syrup in drums by the end of next week!
Great info! Thx for sharing! Good thing I'm off next week for the tsunami!Quote:
Originally Posted by Quabbin Hill Farms
I'm off next week aswell I'm so thankfull I got it off I think I'll be busy as all of us will.
*groan* I'm off right now but can't tap, and back to work next week so I'll be working some long days...and night...ahh the life!
I worked at cleaning up the pans and general wash down of the sugar shack. Took the pans off to discover a winter visitor stuffed a couple of pairs of knee high socks in the fire box, and half way up the arch. Now the weird thing is these socks aren't the wife's, so what ever brought them up to the stove had to drag them a 1000ft from the nearest house. Last year it had stuffed the chimney full, and I gagged when I lit everything up and got smoked out. I was lucky I didn't have the pans full of sap at the time, as everything had to be taken apart again to fill a couple of pails full of crap. I'm happy to see finally we get to put in some long hours, and replenish the dwindling stock pile of syrup.
Oh the trees are going to flow big time this next week with the 11 & 12's mid week, a little cooler at night would be good but I'll take what's coming. Good luck to everyone, may you have many boils.
Well, the mice have certainly got a hold of your shack but thank goodness it's time to reclaim! We have the same issue in our winter garage.. Buggers they r! I'm sure you'll get your sap boiling regardless!Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxJ
😉
Hey Ennis, what do you think of that forecast with mostly positive temps through the nights next week? Still gonna work out, or do you think it'll be better the following week if it cools down a bit?Quote:
Originally Posted by ennismaple
If I've learned anything about maple syruping over the years, it's the following.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle Baker
- If you like the what you see in the weather forecast - it will change before it arrives.
- If you don't like what you see in the weather forecast - it too will change.
- If you take a week off when the kids are home for March break, sap won't run - but it will Monday when you go back to work.
- If you have to go out of town for a day - sap will run like crazy.
- When you finally get so much sap you boil all night to get caught up - cause it's going to be another great day tomorrow - all your trees will stop flowing and you'll be sitting looking at empty tanks.
I've given up trying to predict the season. Make syrup while the sap flows.
Well put, Big Eddy! I'm just gonna stick the spiles in Sunday and let the sap come. And stay up til 1am knowing full well I have to be out of bed by 7am...etc...
Kyle,Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle Baker
We can make 50% of our crop for the season in a week so if you miss next week's run I think you'll be sorry. Even if you go by the old rule of thumb that bucket taps are good for 6 weeks that gets you to April 17 if you tap on Sunday. Chances are pretty good that by the 3rd week of April we'll be finished or close to it so get what sap you can now.
Oh no worries there, im tapping this weekend regardless. Fingers crossed for a good week!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ennismaple
When I used to teach riding, I often told my students - eps adult beginners used to planning and analyzing too much - to 'Stop thinking about riding, and just ride.' That was usually when they rode their best in a lesson :-)
Ok it's nice and sunny out but still too cold to tap...would like to tap tomorrow but willing (barely) to wait til Sunday...all but pawing at the ground in frustration!
Caught the perfect weather condition this afternoon. A few really cold days recently but it's now sunny and warming up. To save boiling time, I pulled ice out of some buckets. Sure doesn't leave a whole lot of sap.
It hurts to throw that much away, but I keep telling myself it's only water. :lol:
http://i64.tinypic.com/2jdq844.jpg
A corkscrew is the perfect way of lifting the ice out of the 5 gallon pail.
http://i63.tinypic.com/2vaz1ox.jpg
Let the serious flowing begin.
This is awesome Eddy !! and so trueQuote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
Hey there 67Heaven, hate to say anything, but in my opinion those ice blocks are too solid to be just water. Flakey ice is just(ish) water. Slushy ice is just(ish) water. Hard ice has enough sugar locked inside that I'd melt those blocks and catch the 'melt off' until the blocks are half the size. Then I'd be confident in chucking the rest.
Knocked down with the flu bug for two days,batteries on the charger tonight,if it gets above freezing tomorrow, we'll see if we can get a bush or two tapped this weekend
Thanks for the advice, Karen. I guess this is how we learn. ;-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
You're welcome 67. You and I are small time sugarers and I'd hate to see any of our hard work and sugar get wasted. BTW, I measured the sugar content in my flakey ice the other day. It was at .4%. Definitely not something I'd spend my time on. This is where my handy dandy little $28 sap refractometer off ebay becomes indispensable. It takes all the guesswork out of my decisions.
Good morning
Well I have to say I'm a little stressed with over a 100 trees tapped last weekend but only
a little drizzle of SAP in my collection barrels.
Now I'm looking at the weather forecast and wondering how the double digit temps this week will effect the flow without the freezing temps at night.
Does anyone else feel my pain LOL:lol:
If I were you I'd be ready for some late nights!! :-)
I share your concerns. I'm hanging buckets this morning, wondering why. Doesn't seem like it's gonna be worth the effort.
Hehe, just you wait...Quote:
Originally Posted by marlmucker
Count me among those freaking out. :lol: I haven't got enough to even think about boiling yet, and along comes this thread in the New Jersey section where they're high-fiving about the end of a great season.
WAIT A MINUTE. Is the season that different in New Jersey?
http://mapletrader.com/community/sho...Done-amp-Happy!
The forecast for the week after this coming one has been changing to look more favourable for us up here. I'm a lot more optimistic now than I have been.
If night-time temperatures rarely fall below freezing from now on, surely that doesn't mean that the sap stops flowing, does it? My completely inexperienced, newbie self says, "Doesn't the sap have to keep flowing up to provide nourishment to grow the leaves?".
If the sap stops flowing, how does the canopy develop? A little edu-ma-cation would be greatly appreciated....or just tell me I'm an idiot and I'll shut up. :lol:
I think tapping trees takes only 10% of a tree's sap, so there's plenty left over for leaves, growth etc. I always keep a close eye on my canopies. If anything, the canopies on my best trees look better each year! Certainly if any of them looked anything less than robust, I would stop tapping that tree. The sap doesn't stop flowing, but it will turn buddy, ie sour etc and nobuddy *grin* wants that.
Very simply put, we're just taking sap before all the good stuff that helps growth go up. I'm sure there are some posts by Dr Tim Perkins kickin around here, look in sub-forums like tree management. He's the expert.
Oh and re NJ...fuhgeddaboutit. So if their season's come to an end, it's because it was probably meant to (haven't been following them). Hey, two years ago I was flooded with 400+l of sap, but in Osgoode, only 35km away, they got virtually nothing. There are so many variables involved - soil and drainage, wind, temperature, sunshine, age and health of trees, microclimates - there's no point worrying about what's happening in other parts of North America.
Thanks Galena,
I remember hearing about the "buddy" thing last year (my first year) but had forgotten.
http://i66.tinypic.com/2us7ma0.jpg
I'll go back to watching for buds to develop and hope for some decent flow from my spiles before they show up.
The cold snap here finally broke. Saw a high of 0 today, got 25 taps in, sap flowing from the road side ones. Still average 35 inches of snow in the bush. Temps looking good this week.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. :D
One bush tapped this afternoon,not a lot running yet,snow still frozen hard up the sides of the trees
Put in 95 taps this afternoon, and out of that I saw a half dozen dripping and two gushers as soon as I drilled. Over all things were pretty quiet still today, it gave me a chance to do some repairs and tweaking of the lines.
Relax, buds probably won't show up til about mid-April or so. If you have reds they will stop producing sap (meaning good, clear, usable sap) and bud first, in my bush they pop out at least 2 weeks before the sugars bud. My best tree will keep on producing til the very last day, when it's getting too warm and moths and flies are in the sap. Watch for sap that looks cloudy and/or smells off especially as you start to boil. Last year the final batch from the virgin bush soured on me overnight, but didn't realize it til I started to boil the next day. My house suddenly smelled like a hot muggy swamp full of frogs! I chucked it immediately - unless of course you WANT your syrup to taste like a frog's butt... >:-pQuote:
Originally Posted by 67HEAVEN
Meanwhile...stop thinking and worrying so much, and go tap, collect, make syrup, rinse, repeat!!!!!
Yay!! Worked today and the CEO of operations called me to say the Taps started dripping again! Yay! My engines are started!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Lesley I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep tonight. It's like Santa is coming and my buckets are hung on the trees with care! The first run of the season is always so exciting! All the best for a killer run in Inverary. :D
we finished tapping all 2000 Saturday afternoon, took about 2 1/2 days, trees where running a bit when we drilled them. Just got to wash some tanks and hook up the vacuum pump today.
LOL it's barely 7am on a Sunday morning and look at how busy this place is! Tapping today, at last. Have to get my snowpants on and go stomp paths to the trees...once I actually wake up, shower etc :-)
Just waiting for the day to warm up.....
It's coming.....
TurkeyJohn
I can hardy stand the excitement. The sunshine is really going to kick start things out there soon!
Woohoo!!! So happy! Just finished setting the spiles, happy to be punching through the snowcrust which only 20 min earlier was still solid enough to walk on...and guess what...the south spile on #5 is already dripping! That same spile has been the first one to produce the last two years, so let's hope it's a good sign! Walking around with an idiotic smile on my face, at least the neighbours are used to it :-)