Willow Creek Sugarhouse 2012

[Dill]

Your making me feel better about not tapping yet Brad. Looks a like an on and off week coming up. How's your sugar content looking?

[red maples]

sugar seems to be pretty low. but we'll see how things progress you better get tapping for this weekend dill Temps look great for weds. on next week and I am expecting BIG sap today and tomorrow!!! I'l get my signature done right now!!!

[NH/Pete]

Anything on gravity or buckets yet Brad?

[Dill]

I'm putting the gravity taps in this weekend. The owner of my vac bush is still on vacation so I don't have anywhere to plug in the vacuum pump.

[red maples]

I didn't put gravity up yet kinda trying to stay away from the old buckets gonna get the rest on gravity tubing. I think I might do just 1 tree on a bucket its kindof a bum tree sugar maple too but for some reason 2 years in a row thing thing doesn't like to give up sap!!?? I still think its a bit early for those anyway they are going in monday or tuesday.

Sap coming in a little slowly. Ground is pretty frozen since we have no snow insulator I think. just getting sap from swamp tree I think. Hopefully it will come in stronger this afternoon. Boiled out what I had in 2 1/2 hrs I'll get back at it later tonight and finish out what I get today. Hoping for 150 g's today!!! but we'll see how it goes. no draw off yet but flavor is very vanilla sugar like so far but still have a ways togo.

[red maples]

Yesterday I only ended up with about 75 gallons I think the ground is just a little frozen still and is effecting the water draw from the roots. In any case I straight out don't trust my sap hydro. Its reporting 0% to .5 % sugar but I got my pans sweetened with just over 200 gallons so I am guess thats about 2+ % last year it took me 300 gallons to even get a draw off. I'll take that any day with my trees. got a draw off about 1/2 gallon which I wanted to anyway brought it in the house to finish on the stove and ened up with awesome very light side of medium. just did a quick filter though so it was a little cloudy. with a better filtering I guess it would be very close to light. Beautiful vanilla flavor. I don't really want light though...nobody wants it!!!(except one person who thinks light is less sugar HA!! ) what ever they are from NC!! but I have a few medium grade customers and I think medium makes better flavored confections anyway!!!

today is gonna be tough boiling though. have to try to get all done tonight after "father daughter" dance at school. so be back in the sugar house about 10:00 dragging my butt for a few hours. then sleep in on Saturday!!!!

And one last thing which never fails I got my maple season COLD!!! sore throat etc etc etc. OH MAN!!!

[red maples]

I could just pull up a chair and watch the releaser!!! It was running pretty good by the end of the day, not real hard. Got about 200 gals yesterday. there was slush in the releaser manifold last night so I shut down 33* at 10 PM woke up to 36* checked out the releaser no slush so I turned it back on its still coming in but slow! I was feeling like a bag of smashed buttholes last night so I slept. so we'll tackle that this afternoon. with the little I had left over yesterday + yesterdays + todays I should have 300 + gallons to take care of Pans are 100% sweet should have a few gallons of syrup by tonight I am sure .

Thought we were gonna have some snow by this morning...nope! maybe pick up an inch today so the weather channel says!!!

Happy boiling and tapping everybody...great sap weather here by Tuesday through the end of the week!!! Season's here get on it!!!

[Spile4Me]

I am in Portsmouth, so not too far away. This will be our second year, but I am unsure with the weather we have had if we should tap this week or wait a week. Any advice would be grateful.

[red maples]

I am in Portsmouth, so not too far away. This will be our second year, but I am unsure with the weather we have had if we should tap this week or wait a week. Any advice would be grateful.

I would tap sunday or monday!!! I am planning on tapping my gravity lines on Monday. at this time of year besides the mapletrader.com I visit the weatherchannel.com for the 10 days forecast about just as often as I check my email!!! as soon as you start to see the 40's/20's its time to tap. and starting tuesday its gonna be 40's/ 20's for as far I the corscast goes at least thats what it said yesterday its probably different today!!!


SOOOO I still didn't get a draw off I ran out of time boiling thought I had things sweeter than I did I guess. its very close though. with this cold it takes like warm liquid no flavor BLAH!!! man when its chilly out and overcast and no breeze man that steam goes 100+ feet in the air just awe-some to watch!!!

Managed to get 50-60 gallons of sap today. Didn't really get a freeze last had we I think it would have been a better day. I missed about 3 hours of it though when I was at my daughters basketball game stupid releaser backed up!!! POS!!! I am gonna bring it in tomorrow or monday and give a really good cleaning. But I still have about 100 gallons and I'll bang that out in the morning. Time for a shower and a little TV. Night everybody!!!

Its Nice when you get back into the swing of things and get a good rhythm going!!!

[red maples]

Only have a quick second. Happy V-day everybody hope you get lots of sweets!!!

got a few gallons yesterday, and barely anything today. after the hard freeze from the weekend its gonna take a little time to get things going I think and these clouds don't help much. Was feeling pretty bad this morning so I only went out for a about an hour to work on some of the gravity tubing. fixed some squirrel damage ran a little more tubing to pick a few more trees on gravity instead of buckets.

Still sitting on 75+ gallons of 1/2 frozen sap that I can't do much with well because its frozen!!! Hopefully it will be thawed enough by tomorrow I can boil it out its fine its been so cold. but don't wanna wait too much longer to get it boiled out!!! sap is sap after all right!!!