Trying to hold out

Still waiting to tap. Getting really hard looking at the posts. My wife and I put some buckets out as testers. Waiting for the big lines though.

You can wait til May or June and then you can work in shorts and a tee shirt. All kidding aside, unless you only want a little for the family, why wait? If you use CV's, or have new drops with new taps, the tap holes will remain open all season.

yea, one thing about the posts is i hear people saying holes are wet and filling up as they drill. if its above freezing the hole will always fill up right off the bat, come back in 30 minutes and they usually slow a bit. if you plug a hole and sap stats hitting ground in the first 5 seconds, then there may be something to talk about. theres a very sudden pressure difference so the sap near the hole is forced to it. my test tree has only had 1/2 gal in two days-seems like should be more, is new spout and drop into gallon jug, 4 weeks old at this point, either the sap isn't runnin or the holes drying up already which is hard to believe with new spout and drop.

I have 36 buckets out as testers and they haven't produced enough to get me excited. With colder temps in the forecast I think I'm making the right choice for me. If I were on vacuum I'd tap now. All gravity though.

I think that some people who tapped and are getting sap are making some syrup and that's great. I don't think those who held out are going to miss out on alot.

I know a few people who tapped near me that really didn't get all that much. Hopefully we can get back to a more normal weather pattern after this extended thaw.

Days are still short and the sun is low in the sky. Until the days get longer and the sun gets higher, the amount of sap collected will be small because the trees don't thaw out enough for long enough time frame to run much sap.

I have been hearing of some great runs, and some not so great. I am still shooting for Valentines day weekend. I am not one to look at long term, I broke though. End of Feb. and all of March is looking perfect. We all know how the weather in New England goes though.

I'm still holding out till Pres. weekend. If I'd thought this warm-up was really going to last this long, I may have made more of an effort to have been tapped in for it, but I really didn't think it was going to.

Those long range forecasts always look perfect, but reality is a completely different thing. My prediction is once it warms up, it's going to be go time, so be ready.

Tapped in CT 8 days ago...145 gallons on 49 taps, so non producers are getting pulled today and relocated. 2.5 gallons of syrup, some taffy (oops) and about 40G of sap in reserve ready for batch 3 soon...first timer


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Tapped half yesterday. As I was contemplating my decision (I'm in my third year) I was getting dripped on by all the squirrel nicks from up above. Enough that it was almost like there had been some ice on the branches, but nope. Trees were running. I do have mainly CV taps that were disinfected prior to, so I'm hoping that if we have slow periods where it's supposed to get colder will be outlived by an early season.