Ridgeland Farm 2015

[Greyfox]

I recently switched from farming to art. I have just completed a three-acre, 1000 foot long 5/16" ice sculpture. I'm afraid it may be on display for a while. I've entitled it "Where's "Global Warming" when we need it."

Doc

[red maples]

Thats Funny!!! I got one too!!!

[Ridgeland Farm]

Well the cold has gone away and some decent weather looks like its in the near future. FINALLY!! The wind didn't do to much damage to me, but the cold did. Found a few cracked manifolds yesterday. Did a quick patch to get them working. Out today to replace them. One can on my releaser was solid ice. Not sure how that happened. And it was so cold the water line to the vacuum pump froze while it was running! Everything is back together now. Hopefully today is a little more relaxing! Looks like sap for maple weekend. Now just need to make some syrup to have for maple weekend!

[Russell Lampron]

Hey Stefan,

It's good to see another maple producer from Loudon here. Like you I'm hoping for some sap weather. This cold has lasted way to long. Good luck with the rest of your season.

[Ridgeland Farm]

Thanks Russ! Still slow goin here. Only getting about 800 gal/day. Once we get a good freeze thaw it should open up! For now were saving sap for tomorrow. Made about 25 gal yesterday. Checked sugar last night around 9 and it has dropped to 1.7. Really wishing it froze last night. It right around 32 at my releaser. Next week looks better.

[Russell Lampron]

We've had some good looking 10 day forecast for most of the month and they have all turned into the deep freeze. I'm thinking that next week is the week though. I don't want to jinx it so forget that I said that if the forecast turns to crap. Where are you located? I'm going to have to stop by and check things out.

[BlueberryHill]

Yeah, it feels like for the last 2 months almost, "next week" is the week that it's gonna break open.

[Ridgeland Farm]

Im on loudon ridge. Just after the church. 1st driveway after Gilmanton rd on the right.

[Ridgeland Farm]

What a great maple weekend! It was our first maple weekend so we had low expectations and we were blown away at the turnout! Surprisingly Saturday was a much bigger day for us than Sunday. We made 25 gallons Saturday and 15 on Sunday. Still not much happening in our woods. maybe 1000 gallons yesterday. Made dark all weekend mainly because I only concentrated to 7%. Now its time to concentrate on getting the woods in top shape! Was able to maintain 25.5'' for the weekend. Now work on the tiny things to get us back to where we should be. Not much will happen today. Still frozen here. Time for some good sugaring weather to come our way.

[Russell Lampron]

I didn't get much sap here today either. I got more between 4 pm and when it froze last evening than I did all day today.

You are up on the ridge where all of the Maple Weekend traffic goes. I catch some of the people that are headed to or from the ridge here. By the comments I was getting about how my syrup tasted the best I would say that the crowds had already visited the ridge when they stopped here. I heard some good comments about your syrup too. The syrup that I heard the most negative comments about was from Maple Ridge.