First syrup of 2013!

[Goggleeye]

Made our first syrup yesterday! 2.5 gallons of liquid gold, a very light amber. More to make today, Yeehaw!
Now, if I could only get some sleep. Was out until 2 am collecting sap, trying to beat the rain.

[Goggleeye]

Row, row, row your boat
Gently through the flood.
Gathering up sap barrels
wading through the mud.

Guess I should've got out of bed last night and drug them to higher ground. However, I wasn't expecting 5+ inches of rain. 12 barrels in a flood plain. 11 rescued, 1 headed towards the Mississippi. Fortunately, there was a stiff north breeze, and we live on the south side of the creek. What a fun way to spend Sunday morning!

[Groves]

Looks like you're off to a blazing start. How's that pan working out so far?


We just tapped yesterday, but only because of some shipping mixups. Missed that last run. Won't miss this next one.

[Goggleeye]

Works great! It's nice to evap 50 gallons/hour. I'm finally able to keep up with sap flow. We made 16.5 gallons on our first run, this weekend looks to give us another good run.

[Goggleeye]

Today we hit the century mark for the first time! So far it's been a phenomenal year. 3 good runs + 1 really big sap has provided us with over 1qt per tap (402) in just a month's time. Not bad for gravity tubing, I presume? As well as a lot of 7-10 inch trees tapped, not to mention a record drought last summer.

[Groves]

Sounds like a banner year. Nice work!

We're clicking along, tapped 19 trees this year. Plenty more out there, but I didn't want the hassle. We've had two batches so far, 1-2 gallons each. That reminds me, I need to finish that last batch.

We'll have at least one more batch.

Keep up the good work.

[Goggleeye]

At what point should I begin to feel sorry for the trees? Been running 8 weeks now, a few runs have dried up, but we're still making syrup!

[Revi]

Today we hit the century mark for the first time! So far it's been a phenomenal year. 3 good runs + 1 really big sap has provided us with over 1qt per tap (402) in just a month's time. Not bad for gravity tubing, I presume? As well as a lot of 7-10 inch trees tapped, not to mention a record drought last summer.

I think I would feel sorry for the 7 inch trees now, because that's a pretty small tree to tap. We don't tap any unless they are 10 inches. It's hard on them, especially with the drought. I wouldn't worry about the 10 inch trees though.

[Goggleeye]

I think I would feel sorry for the 7 inch trees now, because that's a pretty small tree to tap. We don't tap any unless they are 10 inches. It's hard on them, especially with the drought. I wouldn't worry about the 10 inch trees though.

As bad as our drought was, we finished the summer with about 8-10 inches of slow, soaking rain from August 16 through when the leaves started to change mid October. And we had some of the best fall color I've ever seen. I've always assumed good color meant low stress, but don't know for sure.

As far as those smaller trees go, several years ago (3 I think), I tapped some 6-7 inchers that were very close to others, not being real concerned if I killed them. They are now 8-10 inch trees, and seem to be growing just as fast as those not tapped. I wonder if the longer growing season we have in Missouri has anything to do with them not seeming affected? Guess I'll see this summer if the drought stress combined with tapping proved too much for the little guys.

As of right now, we've processed 132 gallons of syrup from 402 taps.