Eastern Ontario 2016

[Lespetras]

So I see a lot of eastern Ontario taps slowed down today.. Us too! We collected a total of 323 litres in 2 days but most of that was yesterday. We are currently working on boil number 6! It's gonna be a late night tonight only half way through!

Next year.. It's gonna be a big a__ arch with lines! Enough of this luggin buckets of sap around.. I'm in it for the smell and the booze.. Forget the excercise!

[DrewCP]

We still haven't had a huge run yet. Less than 2L per tap per day average for the last few days. Not really concerned at all. We only need enough sap to do 2 boils. That always gives us enough syrup for our family and some to give away.
Everyone was pretty impressed with the young lad. He is now able to collect his own trees! No help at all!

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Cant wait to get out and boil for the next couple days!

[Run Forest Run!]

What a great little worker Drew. Do you rent him out by the day or by the hour? He'd sure be a big help around here!

[BrutemanAl]

Awesome pictures Drew, I love it when the boys come to the forest to help, my oldest at 6 is my runner, if I need something from my atv, he goes and gets it. My other boy at 5, sticks by my side and helps where needed, or he walks behind my atv and brings me the buckets when I stop so I can empty them into my container.

So far this year it has not been great so not allot of help has been needed, but it is the time spent with them in the bush that matters, I try showing them different things to look at and try to teach them things like.... what made that foot print? no its not a robin... its a deer lol. What made that foot print? Nope that's not a deer !! That's a bear lol. They will get it one day I hope lol

[Vandy]

That is annoying when others in your area get more sap than you. I wonder how Kyle is doing down near Smiths Falls, he's only 40km away but could be getting tons more sap as he's further south than me. On the other hand, people more north of me by the same approximate distance, could be getting very little as they did in 2014. Microclimates, lay of the land etc etc...the only other bush I can compare accurate notes with is 5min drive away.

Portland Reporting in:

March 7 = 136L on 104 taps
March 8 = 138L on 104 taps
March 9 = 157L on 121 taps
March 10 = 50L on 121 taps
March 11 = 203L on 121 taps
March 12 = 385L on 121 taps
March 13 = 89L on 121 taps

Today nothing, time to jar and get a new fan for my arch.

[ennismaple]

Saturday was our biggest single boil ever. 12 hours from when we started up the RO until we left the sugar camp. It was a high to mid Amber-Rich all day but we were not able to get it to Golden. Sugar content was not great but OK - better than Thursday's first boil. We've now walked all our lines and found the worst of the leaks plus the "hangers" (mental note - need better training program for volunteer tappers). All systems are running at 20" Hg or better.

Yesterday was disappointing. It froze Saturday night but we got not much more than 1/2 gallon of sap per tap. We had to wait to fire up the RO until mid afternoon because there wasn't a lot of sap ahead of us. It was a decent run but not what we hoped.

From 3 boils we're at about 25% of a crop. This week's weather looks much better considering 5 days ago it was forecasting double digit highs with no freezing at night. What we really need is 8" of wet fluffy snow!

[Galena]

Today's nice and cold and rainy so all the trees are just shut down, saying they worked hard giving up 50l this weekend, they'll be back at work Wed or Thurs :-)

[Quabbin Hill Farms]

Yes Sat was a good day i gathered 1,200 gal of sap ran it through the R.O. It was 2.9% coming in my R.O. took it to about 6.0. Not as good Sunday but left my vacuum running over night and got another 100 gals. overnight Sunday.

[Bruce L]

Marty,are you getting any freezes?It came close here last night,was down to 36 at 8:00, little bit of ice on the puddles this morning,but too light a freeze for too little a time to start anything

[Lespetras]

Whew..
Batch #6.. 338 litres made 10.7 litres of syrup! Sugar content 2.7% sap/syrup ratio 32:1, longest boil we've done.. So dark!!but good for my family as they love the dark stuff.. I'm a bit more partial to the lighter syrup with vanilla undertones
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