Running Good Hudson Valley

[Maple88]

Tapped on the 8th of Feb and it ran OK for the last 3 weeks, but the sap is coming on hard this week. Looks good for at least a couple of weeks left.

[Snowy Pass Maple]

We are slightly more north of you in central Dutchess in a cold valley - has been intermittent with some big runs and lulls, but turned on again yesterday and expect today will be amazing. Long range forecast for March looks like only 1 day cracking 50, and every single night freezing - most into the 20s. Could be a phenomenal season if that holds true, and seasonal spouts/CVs/specailized tapping bits live up to the hype!

[Maple88]

Homemade RO sounds pretty interesting. Any pics/description of that unit?

[Snowy Pass Maple]

I'm going to get pictures up soon - have not completely put things together as photo-worthy - using it to process sap and didn't totally finish mounting board. It's two 2.5" x 21" small commercial membranes running off a low voltage pump at about 50-60 watts on deep cycle batteries. Helps me keep up with a lot more taps using my 2x4 flat pan evaporator!

Great run today - saw a few trees in the 2-4 gallon range - not sure what to expect tomorrow yet!

[Snowy Pass Maple]

207 gallons on 127 bucket taps in 24 hours Tues-Wed AM. Looks like we may actually get a run this weekend instead of all the weekday runs we've been having... really tough with a day job! Hopefully the warm spell through early next week doesn't end the season - unseasonably cool weather to follow... will find out of seasonal spouts can keep us alive longer.

[Maple88]

This rain can't be doing much good in terms of extending the season; maybe this weekend will be the end of the run? Any more experienced hands out there that know when to pull the plug due to budding?

[RUSTYBUCKET]

Given the weather this past weekend, what was expected to be a good run yielded far less than anticipated. I'm not a commercial producer so squeezing every last drop is not a priority. Finished up what we had and decided to call it a season.

[Maple88]

Thanks Rusty. Yeah, way slower the last 3 days than I had hoped. Maybe today? I'm going to hang in for another few days as I don't see buds on any trees except right next to the house where my dryer exhausts... Still, the flavor and color this year was real good so far, with a little bit of a butterscotch taste in the early batches, so overall no complaints.

[Snowy Pass Maple]

I'm not seeing a hint of budding yet and hope things to really pick up well again later this week... we're running seasonal taps for first time too, so we'll see just how long they can run. At least 6/10 days in 10-day forecast look good for sap running, starting Friday for us as Thursday may not crack freezing for the high. We barely got a freeze in open areas last night and I'm not counting on much today.

We and maplepancakeman (also on mapletrader and a few miles from me) seem to be making tons of light syrup so I'm hoping to see if all this warm weather finally starts to yield some darker stuff as well. I like it all, but variety is nice!

[Maple88]

I'm a little south of you, so I'm seeing good-sized buds on a number of the red maples now, even those deep in the woods, so I'm only pulling from sugar maples at this stage. Fortunately, that's most of my trees.

Had a pretty good run today and its actually spitting snow right now, so looks good for the next maybe 5 days... here's hoping there's a last hoorah here.