Ulster County Catskills

[Ghs57]

Completely froze up here. No warm temperatures expected until Friday at the earliest. So we wait.

[Ghs57]

My holding tank froze solid during the single digit temps over the past week or so. Sap was running the past few days, but not gushing. I still do not have enough to start up the evaporator. Still a huge ice block in the holding tank. we were able to chip the ice out of one of the collection tanks, but the other one is still frozen solid.

What a strange season so far. Last year by this time I had 25 gallons made. Hoping for the best this year, but probably will not be anywhere near last year's totals.

[Ghs57]

Finally up and running.

Anyone undecided about going with an RO unit, get off the fence and buy it. I ran 300 gals much faster than raw sap boiling. Set up and learning the process slowed things down some, but should be even smoother from now on. It will also help when I have the hose fitting figured out so I'm not sharing adaptors etc. every time I make a pass.

Looks like a good week ahead here.

[Pancake Hollow]

RO is so cool. Last year I didn’t have one and so my first 8000 gallons required 99 hours of boiling. This year I got thru that amount in 27 hours of boiling. I got the machine in late fall, stared at it with wonderment for a couple months, finally got it plugged in and I remember that ultimate first day I used it on sap - I woke up extremely anxious and inexperienced with it, but 1000 gallons of sap later and a good boil, I went bed feeling like a pro with it and there is no looking back - I love this machine! Can’t say enough about the guy I bought it from - fourth generation sugarmaker took great care of it, even installed some upgraded components before selling it to for a bigger unit.

Cheers to this next week, just hoping it’s not the last for us in 2019 down here in the lower Hudson Valley. Needs to trend a bit cooler after the 23rd than it’s currently forecast.

[Ghs57]

Yeah, it's a great machine. My rig is dialed in quite well now, and the higher concentration sap coming in allows me to almost continually draw off syrup (sometimes just a trickle). My second run went smoother than the first, now that I know how to fit it into the process.

I'm hopeful the weather will work with us for a while longer, as I am nowhere near last year's totals. We had a freeze last night, so we shall see how it goes today. All my tanks are dry, so need more sap!

[Ghs57]

The trees seem to be making up for the big shut down earlier this month. I've never seen runs like I'm getting now. My tanks are overflowing almost daily. It's a good thing I now have the RO unit, which will make it easier to catch up tomorrow. I'm still way behind last year, but things are looking up.

[Ghs57]

Getting ready to process and run about 350 gals from the last 2 days. Things have finally slowed down, and we had borderline freezing temps last night, so we will see what happens today. Over 10 gals made so far, with a potential for about 15 more based upon my current collection totals. Hoping for 35 if the weather holds on for another 10 days.

[Ghs57]

Still going pretty strong here. Next freeze predicted for Sunday night, although I'm about at my end for this year. I'm just 150 gals short of last year, which I would not have thought possible with such a late start for the season. Everything has been running fine; RO, evap, wood supply, all the misc, equipment. Better than expected. I'll be cleaning up/taking down tubing/bottling in the next week or so.

[Ghs57]

Matched last year's collection total. We should freeze tonight and Monday, but I'm about done. I don't know if I'll hang in for one more run. We'll see. I need a week or more to break down/clean up before some personal commitments coming up in two weeks.

[Ghs57]

I'm done. Staring the take-down, clean up Monday.