Wow, we didn't get hit that hard over here, never even lost power. These storms really change rapidly in a couple miles. Hope you get it all fixed easily.
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Wow, we didn't get hit that hard over here, never even lost power. These storms really change rapidly in a couple miles. Hope you get it all fixed easily.
spent another 2 hrs in the woods this afternoon found another tree snapped in 1/2 over the main and across 2 laterals. got that straightened up. I think I got everything back in close to pretty good order... good enough anyway!!! I still need to get across the street I think that needs to thaw a little before I can get at it and see if I can fix that. the main it on the edge of a swamp since its the lowest point and there is a bunch of tall brush that is leaning over the main line so its sagging pretty good and only one branch broke so not too bad over there.
yes very sticky snow. it kept going back and forth and the temp kept going up and down a degree or 2 for a few hrs which was just enough to get a little snow in the trees then it froze enough with the wind to for all the wet snow to stick and it was just too much throw in a stiff breeze and lots of popping and cracking!!!
turned on the vacuum and its at 26" but I know there is some frozen stuff so have to wait for it all to thaw to see if there is anything else leaking.
glad you all faired better. lots of clean up in the woods this summer. more firewood!!!
You always need firewood but busted maple trees isn't the way that you want to get it. Glad your up and running again.
agreed russ...
Sap has been running a little strange here. I was definitely expecting more sap but 1/2 my woods weren't producing because there were colder since the Sun doesn't hit them good until the afternoon. buckets on road and field edges running weird too I have some smaller trees about 10" out producing 18" and 20" trees and other bigger trees that are running like crazy. almost perfect sap weather here finally but need maybe 2 or 3 degrees warmer day temps. but I will take it.
its amazing what good sap weather will do. My syrup has lightened up to almost amber and sugar is 1.75 / 1.80 which is the highest it has been in 2 years maybe 3 years. I hope it keeps up that way fingers crossed. Its nice when sugar is that high RO goes faster and man you make alot of syrup on so much less sap. I love it.
about 2:00 just as things started running really hard the vac dropped to 19" but needed to collect everything else so ran and did that then back in the woods. it must have been iced up. found 1 tap out 2 really hollow trees. a few little chews her and there and darn red squirrel chews again had to replace 15 ft of tubing its in the same spot as usual because they can walk along the 5/16th tubing and start chewing. It still had ice in it. I might invest in a roll of that metal wrapped stuff just for that section. and it figures is all the way in the farthest back section of the woods.
It's amazing how you always have the most trouble in the area that's the hardest to get to. The sap has gotten sweeter here too, not great but better.
that 1.75 was an average of bucket and vacuum there just happened to be alot of bucket sap in that run. its averaging about 1.4-1.5 or so right now. with these really good sap temp since the storm the sap is really nice and the last draw of last night was at 43 on just 6 from amber. might get that tonight. and so aromatic... syrup was some of the best I have made in some time. hoping tonight is just as good!!!
Not fun collecting buckets in 2 feet of snow but the trails are cut so today should be much easier. heading out to collect now!!!
looks like a freeze up for the weekend just a few more confections to finish some cleaning and snow removal and should be all set hoping I can get everything done this weekend so there is no stress for the week!!!
aint got nothing since friday... quick boil on Friday. its 33* highest temp since saturday(34). turned on the vac pump for s&g's and got a few gallons. honestly I think someone screwed up and switched february and march. It has given me some time to get stuff done for maple weekend. So I am ahead as far as that goes. its weird because the sun is warm but the air isn't. looks like it might start to warm tomorrow a little each day right into maple weekend don;t know when the trees are gonna start flowing again from the very cold nights.
Yea its nice in the sun but its pretty darn cold out. I had 4 sunday morning and 5 this morning. Even the cows were hiding in the barn this morning with that wind.
I haven't gotten anything here since Thursday night. It looks like it should start running again tomorrow and then continue on through Maple Weekend. It would be nice to have a Maple Weekend with fresh sap to boil for a change.
I boiled sunday of maple weekend last year. Saturday we boiled water cause we were froze up solid
between work and maple weekend and then work this week just Been super busy... sorry for lack of updates. a little sleepy as soon as I sit I am out.
We had NH Chronical WMUR in the kitchen at Exeter High school on monday got to teach Sean Mcdonald to use a knife and put stuff away in the freezer. Very nice guy. so that will air on April 9th be sure to check it out. then my boss was out had to go to a funeral so I was kitchen manager for the rest of the week.
anyway we had a very good turnout for maple weekend which surprised me a bit with everything going on in NH, Maine, VT etc. had alot of folks up from Boston and many people visiting multiple sugarhouses. did anyone else see the sugarhouse passport thing? didn;t know they were doing that. although I have been out of touch with the NH maple assoc as of late. I think it may have been the second highest profiting weekend I have had to date. people were spending money. It was also nice to have awesome aromatic sap to boil and alot of it. I saved sap for a couple of days since the sap has been coming in slow. and sugar went up a bit and made 17 gallons over the weekend so that was nice. I concentrated to 7-8% instead of the usual 14-16% to make sure I could still boil fairly hard and have enough sap to last he weekend.
Sap flows have been less than expected on vacuum especially with good sap weather only averaging .5 GPD or less (because of the REDS) but 35 or buckets/sap sacs I have on all sugars have been going gang busters and getting between 1 and 2 gpd on a few they have been over 2 gallons. I have neighbors calling up telling me they are full. very weird indeed and some of those have been in for 5 weeks now. only have about 3 dried up so far. and the sugar on those has been at 1.75 with a high of about 2.3 bringing my average sugar all mixed together at 1.4-1.75 which is very nice since last year averaged 1%. I was nervous because the beginning of the season I was getting 1.1-1.2. thought it might be a repeat of last year.
a little warm up but gotta keep the vac even though I aint gettin' much for sap to keep the sap columns open in the tree if that makes sense. In past years when I have shut off the vac for a few days during long warm night spells it took along time for the sap to get going again.
got about 200 gallons but probably gonna squeeze that and do a quick boil just keep the evap fresh. trying not to let the sap sit to long being its a bit warmer.
Fun year so far I am at just about 100 gallons so far which was my total for last year I will pass that today.
Happy Easter Everybody!!!
It's good to hear from you again Brad. I haven't reached last year's total yet but I'm getting close. I'm at 161 gallons and made 184 last season. I've got about 500 gallons of sap to boil this afternoon which will get me closer.
I had a better than expected turn out for Maple Weekend too. We saw a lot of the passport things too. I think it helped bring people in looking for signatures. Most of them bought something too which made the weekend that much better.
The sap has been running slow here too. I thought it would run better Monday and Tuesday than it did.
Happy Easter to you too.
We only got one of the passports on saturday I think.
Still chuggin along... FINALLY got a freeze last night but I have 2 Reds trees that are budding ( yard trees that get full sun all day and they always bud first) I am gonna do a walk through with binoculars to see if there are anymore and pull those taps.
I lightened up to Amber last night, first true amber that I have made in a few years. but it was a tough boil... lots of foam heavy bacteria. Thought it was gonna be ropey but it was OK. it was a bit tough getting through the filter press too. I ran it right into a blue container and I am gonna put it aside and check it in a few days. I brought a little into the house to check this morning and it was fine. I used it on my oat meal!!! :) It has been just sitting for a bit of course and not a whole lot of sugar to it so it will hurt my hurt my Sap to syrup ratio a bit but hopefully that will pick back up in the next several days. sap is coming in better than it has in a week but still super slow but needs a few more nights like last night as we should be back in business. Good night to get canners emptied and wipe down some stuff.
Cleaned out the collection tanks yesterday too which probably added to the bacteria. pretty nasty!!! So we start fresh and hope for the best. the buds are still pretty tight except for those 2 and I am hoping that after tomorrow that will begin to slow because there is some nice sap weather coming. Its been a long season and I am tired but I just love to boil!!! most of the bucket guys around here are done and folks are getting things washed up. either had enough or they are out of wood. I am just over a cord of wood used and that made me 100 gallons. so far which is exactly where I am at. Got LOTS of wood and weather looks great!!
and man so after maple weekend I cleaned out the evap and strained the back pan gave it a nice vinegar bath brought everything to a boil and shut it down let it sit for a day. pulled the flue pan up vacuumed out all the ash under the chimney and pulled up the grates and vacuumed that too. did a good brushing on the underside an of the pans as well. and man I am just flying through the sap!!! boiling harder than it has in some time. huge difference.
Good luck to everyone still holding out.
It's good to see that I'm not the only one still chugging along. The sap's been running real slow here but it's running. I think that this will be the last week though because it looks like it's going to warm up next week.
I don't know sap is really slow and I have dumped that last 75 gallons or so. its VERY cloudy and tastes terrible. the next few days look good and as of today the forcast looks favorable until at least wednesday. the buckets on sugars are still running good. but I don;t know if the vacuum trees are gonna make it back. we got a freeze last night but still only got like 25 gallons in the tank and its pretty nasty. its just building bacteria in the lines with the sun being so warm.
So we'll see what the next few days bring. the sap I have in the evaporator has a little metabolism to it. but figured I might get enough to cook it out. I got nothing to loose by trying right!!!???
Also glad to see I'm not the only one in my area still going. Drove around to some other local sugar makers and some taps were pulled some still in. Only collected 85 gallons between the past 3 days. Looks like decent weather till about Tuesday or Wednesday which is when I'll pull my taps. Hoping to have enough firewood to get me thru the next few runs.
I have plenty of wood its the sap thats the problem. I collected 35 gallons on vac today and decided to boil down 1/2 gallon on the stove it tastes pretty bad gonna dump that sap before it freezes and try again tomorrow. releaser is frozen so we are already at 31*F supposed to get to 20+ *F tonight so just have to wait and see if it comes back... you never know???? but I an getting my doubts.
well doesn't look good!!! even after the good hard freeze last night the sap isn't clearing up. still VERY cloudy and boiling down another 1/2 gallon this afternoon it tastes bad. I still have about 20 bags on sugars that are running good and sap is clean and OK so I might just use that and get a few gallons over the next several days until they stop. I will keep trying the vacuum as its not buddy its just severe metabolism like I have never seen. the buds aren't popped at all. weird...
Wow that sucks. I'm not getting much sap here but my syrup still tastes great. What's weird is that the weather is about as good as you can ask for but the trees just aren't producing much sap.
very weird. I am throwing in the towel its just not coming back. I might try again tomorrow just to see if it comes back but I doubt it. supposed to get down to 25* tonight and sunny tomorrow. I will dump again and see what happens. stubborn trees this year!!!
Mine didn't run early either this year. oh well I will only be about 2 gallons shy of last year but I also made some of the best syrup I have made in a few years too. so I will chalk it up to average. I have a really nice sample for the carlisle and the deer field fair this year!!! just need a good honey sample and hopefully we can get a few blue ribbons. If sap isn't better tomorrow then I am done. good thing I saved my permeate from the last boil I had a feeling!!! its always fun... but the bad part is coming.
And I might have to miss the bascom's open house too which I always go to they have some good classes. wife is gonna be away so have to take care of the kids and get them to sports and work and stuff.
It's surprising that the trees just don't want to run. I don't know about your woods but mine are wet enough so that a lack of moisture isn't the problem. It's not just us, no one else is getting anything either.
Good luck if you do try again tomorrow. I hope you get a lot of good sap.