Quote Originally Posted by Lespetras View Post
Oh and I totally agree on blue spikes.., they suck!
LOL attagirl, I knew I wasn't the only one :-)

Cool that you pick up a buttery note along with vanilla. Probably it's due to your terroir (like the vineyards say), the climate, altitude, land, soil, number of trees and their age etc all affecting the syrup, just the same way those same qualities affect grapes used for wine. A really good wine connoisseur can tell which vineyard a wine came from by taste alone.

Also wondering too if it may also be because you're a mom, I've often heard moms have better palates than those who don't have kids. I should ask my dad, he's a retired ob/gyn so maybe he's heard this too. Ironically he has an amazing sense of taste and smell; mine are OK but I wouldn't call my palate great.

I'm located just outside of Oxford Mills, so I'm approx 35 km n/e of Kyle Baker. Like I said earlier, totally befuddled by all the sap I got today, I didn't think I'd get any at all! I believe that last year when things were going nuts at my place, poor Karen was getting barely anything. Then just as things were slowing up here, they sped up for her and she ended up having a decent season.

In terms of how long the run will last? In my experience, 4-6 weeks, though the longest I ever tapped was in 2013, when I started Feb 13 and pulled spiles April 9. Last year I tapped March 9-April 21. I usually see my trees output start to drop if not just dry up almost overnight; I don't keep tapping til I get icky cloudy/smelly sap. You do NOT want that!

So now that you know how long the run will last, hope you have lots of bottles and jars and propane! Muwahahahaaaa....;-)