It's either this weekend or next for me...

[Leo]

I put out 10 taps today (out of 200) on my earliest running Sugars; all dry. Hopefully they will stay that way for a couple more weeks. The snow in the woods is almost impassible even with snow shoes. I thought I had my trails fairly packed for 'shoeing, but the 50 degree sun really made them soft again. It is going to be tough trying to collect! I can run my old snowmobile on the flat trails, but get stuck on the side hills. We have to lose a lot of snow before the 4 wheeler will be able to get around without getting stuck.

[mnguy]

Put out a test bag yesterday in the Forest Lake area. Dry as a bone. Will use the test tap to see when to tap the rest of the trees.

[rjenneke]

We put out about 50 taps on Sunday. A few were dripping...very slowly. It is almost time!

[Shorty]

My Sapping Buddy started tapping yesterday should be done on Wednesday (300 taps) located N.E. of Brownsdale, dry so far. Snow is knee deep but on north side a LOT deeper, he's hoping some will melt before trudging in there.

[lastwoodsman]

We opened the road to the sugar shack last week-end. Five hours and then we decided to wait till this week-end to see how much the snow settles.
Putting in 700 taps this week-end. We will be ready. Have not set up the new RO yet though.
Terry

[SDdave]

Real gusher the last two days. 3 gallons...total. All from one tree, nothing really waking up yet.

SDdave

[craig101]

looks like a couple of my taps are starting to open up. had a small frozen puddle in a bucket last night. i tasted it and it was sap and NOT melted snow. haha. today and tomorrow should be ideal to get them going.

[TooManyIrons...]

Ready to go here, ahead of the game due to excitement. Equipment is all sanitized. Dug out the new scratch-built arch and work area, all was buried under two feet of snow. Set up storage tanks and plumbed them for drip feed. Firewood was all split, stacked, and tarped last fall so is ready to go.

Tapped two test trees. By the forecast I do not expect sap to run for at least another week, probably longer. Snow needs to melt down in the woods, some trees I plan on tapping are still buried in 6-8 foot deep snow drifts. Due to the consistently deep snow cover we had here all winter I do not expect the frost depth to be much deeper than normal. As such I expect it will be a minimal factor at most affecting sap run. We'll see...

I tap silver maple trees. Second year, am now hopelessly addicted. Small operation but am trying to increase production and efficiency without getting too carried away. Am going for 5x the production from last year, revised goal is 15 gallons of finished product. If I succeed then I plan on expanding goal to 25 gallons finished product for next year and hope to maintain that level of production from then on. Doing everything solo, using wood fuel exclusively from start to finish - no dependence on expensive propane here.

To make better use of my time during processing, I will also be making my yearly supply of lump charcoal for grilling (it is done in the same area as the syruping). Not much physical work, just constant monitoring of both processes and feeding fires.

Some long days ahead, am much looking forward to it. :-) Been a long winter.
Good luck to all, be safe.

[SDdave]

TooManyIrons,

Welcome to the support group you are not alone in this addiction!!

About half of the taps are producing now, about 1.5 gal per running tap. The other half...who knows when they'll start. So get ready Silverleaf, and soon thereafter TooManyIrons.

SDdave

[Leo]

Tapped 50 sugars today on snowshoes, about 7 were dripping. Going to have to rig my small collection tank into the snowmobile sled for collecting, can't get the wheeler through the woods yet.