Yesterday I pulled all of my taps for the season. I almost made syrup in May! That's crazy.

I made syrup once in February (the 26th), twice in March (the 11th and 27th) and three times in April (the 5th, 13th and 23rd). My sixth and final batch yielded 3.7L of Amber, bringing my 2018 total to 16.9L of syrup. A respectable total, but not spectacular.

It was a cold year where the daytime temperatures had trouble thawing the taps. For the month of March the taps were frozen solid from the 3rd until the 25th. Then came the ice storm......followed immediately by the warm weather.... and it's over. Average sugar content was hovering around 1.8%. The lowest ever.

I was hoping for closer to 25L of finished syrup but the sap refused to cooperate. I ended up with all grades of syrup which is a definite plus. The darkest of the batches provided a nice glaze on the salmon for tonight's dinner.

On the subject of equipment, I give my new Denali camp stove from Costco two thumbs up. It was easy to use and held three full size steam trays. I can't wait to fire it up again to make syrup next season. However, I know that I'll be finding ways to use it this summer when I'm in full BBQ and grilling mode.

This year certainly had its challenges but in my mind there is no better way to spend February, March and April. Counting down the days until the start of the 2019 season.