Steaming drill bits in Andover- 2013

[Russell Lampron]

Glad to see that your season is going well too. We will be catching last seasons total soon. Got a decent run and an unexpected freeze last night. The sap is pouring in. The report from home was 475 gals. pumped up at 10:00 this morning.

[tuckermtn]

Didn't gather on Wednesday, but pulled in 950 from our vac woods (we have 820 taps on vacuum) and boiled it in last night. Had a Merrimack County Cooperative Extension Advisory Council meeting in the sugarhouse last night which meant we made some pretty irregular density syrup. Distracted "driving" of the evaporator for sure...

Got cold (down to 15deg.) last night so didn't get much of a run today. Hope to get a quicker thaw tomorrow and can get enough to boil tomorrow. Up to 311 gallons jugged so far- making some nice Dark A now.

hoping for another two weeks- only half way to my goal of 600 gallons.

Keeping the faith in our corner of Maple Nation.

-Eric

[R A Powers]

First day of spring and it was 9 degrees here in Cilleyville. My lines and collection drums are all frozen solid. It looks a little better for the weekend but I'm starting to get a little discouraged. We haven't boiled since Monday the 11th. My wife wants to visit your sugar house this weekend if we don't have a decent run so we may be down. Keep the faith, Dick

[tuckermtn]

Well I think all of buzz around maple weekend helped us out with a great turnout yesterday. Steady traffic and steady sales. About $400 more in sales than our best single day so that is a good thing.

I think we boiled 250 gallons in 6 hours so just slowly chugging along. Just enough to make some steam and make it smell good. Sap ran a bit yesterday but we won't need to gather till late today or even tomorrow. Its already 32 here at 7:30am, so hoping for a good run today...

up to 350 gal so far. Guess we were making B yesterday since we were just limping along.

Good luck to everyone open for maple weekend today...if you boil it, they will come...

[Russell Lampron]

Well I think all of buzz around maple weekend helped us out with a great turnout yesterday. Steady traffic and steady sales. About $400 more in sales than our best single day so that is a good thing.

I think we boiled 250 gallons in 6 hours so just slowly chugging along. Just enough to make some steam and make it smell good. Sap ran a bit yesterday but we won't need to gather till late today or even tomorrow. Its already 32 here at 7:30am, so hoping for a good run today...

up to 350 gal so far. Guess we were making B yesterday since we were just limping along.

Good luck to everyone open for maple weekend today...if you boil it, they will come...

Good luck on your second day. We had a great turn out yesterday too with sales at $2 less than last years total for both days! It sucks that you don't have sap to boil. I've got enough to go about 3 hours here running a single pass through the RO.

[tuckermtn]

Mother Nature was very good to us on at least three levels yesterday. Fantastic weather encouraged folks to make the trek up our muddy and pot holed road yesterday. The sun meant folks could linger at the cookout the Heide and crew were running. And finally we had a very good run, so we can fire up this morning and make some syrup for real.

Sold out of cream and candy by noon-time, and much of the syrup Mark was canning yesterday went right out the door. Our total sales for the weekend doubled what we did last year...Lots of people had maple on the mind. The media coverage of Maple Weekend this year was excellent. Had folks from Ossipee, Hudson, and a cluster of folks from the Concord area stop in.

We have often donated syrup to local organizations for fundraising auctions and activities. This year we decided to donate $1 from ever quart or $4 from every gallon sold retail to the ALS Association (looking for cures for Lou Gehrig's Disease). Over $200 raised this weekend alone. See if they can prevent someone else from getting this disease...

We will fire up this morning in a little bit with 1200 gallons to start with and I expect we will bring in another 900 to 1000 gallons by mid-afternoon. Have a good friend Peter coming over to help Kat with the buckets this morning. Time to get the RO back up and running.

Forecast looks good for the next 6 or 7 days then touch and go for overnight freeze-ups after that.

Good luck to all in Maple Nation. Only one week till opening day for the Sox. To me it has been a good season when I can listen to the Sox in the Sugarhouse...

-Eric

[tuckermtn]

Two good gathering and afternoon boils the last two days. about 30 gallons of syrup per day. Up to 420 gallons of syrup. Moved from the grade B we made over maple weekend back up to dark on monday's boil and almost a medium from yesterday.

Have had more vacuum problems in last two days than we have had all season. Worst was moisture trap failed (hate the white PVC ones since you cannont see what is inside) and sucked sap in to the SP-22. Kat and I spent two + hours cleaning up the pink maple merange around the pump from the sap and ATF mix. Its back up and running today.

Had a good freeze last night and its a decent run so far today. Think we might take the day off from boiling and do some tank cleaning...

good luck to all in Maple Nation-

-Eric

[Russell Lampron]

We took last night off so that we could get some tank cleaning done. Back at it tonight though with yesterdays sap and some of todays.

[red maples]

We sold oput of stuff early as well. just a crazy crazy maple weekend!!! We never had so many people come through here. I still have standing orders to fill!!!

My daughter with help from my wife and my son make homemade bracelets and key chains and sell them durring maple weekend and this year they made $175 some people just donate money as well, and all the proceeds go to the NHSPCA, and I match what ever they make so we will be donating $350 this year!!! last year they made $125 so we donated $250. The sad thing is they have SOOOO many animals in there right now as people have to give up their pets because they just can't take care of them.

Glad to hear you had an outstanding weekend as well. Alot of compliments on the sweat shirt too.

[tuckermtn]

Clean tanks are now full tanks. Will start recirculating 1200 gallons on hand in the morning and then go gather the rest as the electric evaporator goes to work. Kat wants to make 50 gallons tomorrow. My bet is on 40.