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It's still too early to tap, and the next couple of weeks are (finally) forecast to be cold, but I'm sure there have been some folks with itchy drilling fingers.
I trust everyone has there supplies on hand, their sugar house cleared out, and all their tapping equipment at the ready.
Here's hoping for a great 2017 season.
big_eddy
Agree with you there Eddy,even with check valves hate to see the sap running on the ground.Have tried storing it before,but even frozen it seems to be cloudy once it thaws out. Replumbing the pipe from storage tank to evaporator today inside the sugar house out of the storm as well as running more wires through the conduit out to the generator
I was informed that one of our big local producers started tapping last week. I'm definitely not getting in a rush. Looks like back to below freezing now for a few weeks. I've been busy getting everything ready. One benefit to warm weather with minimal snow I've been able to get a ton of work done in the bush without slugging through snow and freezing my hands off. Cheers to a good season!
Hey Guys and Girls
I hope everyone"s off season went well, the new season is fast approaching and i think with this crazy winter weather its going to be tough to judge when to tap.
Needless to say I"m almost ready the new shack is complete, wood has been piled and arch all set up.
I am in the process of having 2 dividers welded into my drop flue section of my 2x4 hybrid pan, thus turning it into a continuous flow drop flue area.
Has anyone ever seen this or done this. I have seen 1 divider welded in the drop flue area before but not 2.
Any input or info would be great.
I look forward to reading and see you all post again about the highs and lows of this season.
Bye for now , Talk you all soon
I was talking to Ray Bonenberg (past OMSPA president, current IMSI president) on Saturday asking how much syrup had been made in southwestern Ontario over the last 2 weeks. He said that some got real itchy trigger fingers but decided to hold off. With this cold snap that was probably wise.
We seem to be the middle of every snowstorm that blows through this winter. Got the ATV stuck multiple times when the tires weren't even on the ground anymore! Thank goodness for trig chains on the tractor! I'd say we have 18" to 24" of snow in the woods. Yesterday afternoon we went from sunny to whiteout and back to sunny about 3 times.
We got some prep work done in the sugar camp, a couple mainlines fixed and re-packaged a couple drums of syrup. We need to be able to hit the ground running when the weather starts to cooperate.
My flue pan has 2 dividers in it. Not sure what input you want. It works fine. I can't say if it's better than 2 sections - perhaps a bit more gradient develops. The reason I did it was because I wanted sap to enter at the back right and exit front left, so I made 3 channels. Forward - back - forward -out. In theory I could even reverse the flue pan if I wanted to but have never seen any reason to. (Follow the sweetening link in my sig for a photo)Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffB
As with *almost* every year so far, I am sitting tight til the first week of March...I did once tap last week of Feb, not worth it....C'mon peeps there is pretty much always a HUGE freeze up in Februrary. Why risk damaging your trees for some punky lil January run?! Wait til the trees are ready then go. ETA: excited to tap Surprise! the newly discovered bush maple, tall straight trunked big-crowned sugar, definite 2-spiler, to replace tree #7 which was a red and always the weakest producer. Stay tuned.
Great to see everyone back in the zone. I am definitely excited to start tapping. I think next weekend will be ourtapping time. Looks like Saturday has good temps. But will have to keep checking weather. Very excited to bring our boys out with the buckets!!
I'll be tapping this weekend as well as long as the forecast holds true between now and then.
We're thinking about getting a start on tapping this weekend. We need about 4 days to get everything ready so we might as well take advantage of the warm weather. It'll take a few days to get our trees thawed out before any significant runs can happen. I'm hoping the warm temps will push the snow down a bit - it will be a PITA to tap in snowshoes with all the light fluffy stuff on top of the middle crust we have.