Not a good week for being in the great outdoors making maple syrup. Snow, wind, rain. sleet.mud, water,and ice. Oh ya some sun too. In spite of it all have been plugging along making some nice light colored syrup. Getting enough sap is a problem but under the conditions I really don't care. This week does look better weather wise.
I agree with Terry, the weather has given us all kinds of different weather , sometimes within 2 hour period. The sun will come for a while, melting some snow and then it clouds up and starts snowing, replacing the snow plus some that sun melted. With the amount of snow in the woods and the cooler temperatures, we could be making syrup into May. Also the sap sugar content is the highest in 4 years!
Mother Nature has turned into a real bitch this week. Despite her we had a couple good days of sap running, best days of the season so far. Today is another story, it's ugly out there guys. Still hanging in there tho ain't much else to do this time of the year. Sugar is at 3.50 yet and it's like dangling a carrot in front of the horse pulling the wagon, just a little more. Latest I ever made syrup was 4-22 and could go past that this year.
I pulled my buckets down on Wednesday. Still running good, but I need to get a house ready to sell and start building the new one. I agree with Fred that we could be making good syrup into May this year. His brother told me that he remembered his dad making syrup into May one year. That would be unusual!! I had a good season. Lots of sap and good sugar. Made plenty for the family to enjoy.
april 24 andd still collecting sap and cooking, nice day today.
Finished the season Friday. Really nice syrup this year. Weather was the nastiest ever but over all good season.Snow is about gone April 28. Enjoy them pancakes !
This year sure made up for 2012. I got 20.5 gallons of syrup from 46 trees on buckets. The biggest lesson learned was that tapping Feb 20th didn't really hurt my sap yield as far as I could tell.
2011 - 7 taps, 2 steam pans, block evaporator outside, 4gph
2012 - 32 taps, 5 steam pans (one drop tubed), block arch under lean to, 10gph
2013 - 46 taps, 5 steam pans (3 drop tubed), block arch under lean to, 18 gph
2014-2016 - Can't remember, moved and skipped a year somewhere in there
2017 - 60 taps, 2x6 pan with drop tubes, under roof (no walls), 20 gph
Getting crew together for tapping end of month,29th will be the day. Twenty inches of snow yet,not good.
We tapped on Saturday March 15th and Sunday the 16th, on Sunday we were able to walk on top of 2-1/2 to 3 feet of snow with snowshoes. It hasn't done anything yet with the January temperatures at the end of March.
Tapped today, 50 buckets hanging and hoping for better weather.
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