Tapped Today

[dsaw]

Got started late in the day (kid's swim meet), but got 46 taps in over about 3 hrs before it got too dark. Only one tree was running while tapping (should have been 33 according to WeatherChannel) , figured the rest were too cold. Not sure how hard I'll hit it tomorrow. I'm probably already over the limit of my 2x3 Smokey. I'm finishing up an RO, but not quite done yet. I might hold off tapping more until next weekend and spend tomorrow prepping equipment.

I live 1:20 away, and need to be home tomorrow for a dinner, so I'm sure it'll be running like mad as I'm heading out.

[Andrew Franklin]

I'm in the same situation as you - I live north of Indy and my woods is near Bloomington. I've held off tapping because I don't want just a little bit of sap to sit in my 250 gallon collection tanks [3/16 lines running to them] for too long. My thought was to wait for when things were really running, but please let me know how yours do over the next few weeks - maybe I'll jump in a little earlier!

[dsaw]

Ended today w/81 taps installed. About 1/2 were flowing on my random spot check about 4 pm.

[ericjeeper]

280 taps in east of Martinsville,about half were running good. Tomorrow should be a great day of flow. Temps not going to drop so low tonight.

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[ericjeeper]

Gathered 250 gallons today. Shut the blowers off with 110 left in the tank. All of my float switches are working great. All I have to do is feed wood.

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[ericjeeper]

I am having steam issues bad,my cupola doors run north to south.wind blowing hard out of the north. So tomorrow I will be fabricating aluminum hood. And aluminum duct up into the cupola.

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[dsaw]

Good luck with the hood. I boil under an open lean-to attached to my pole barn. My "steam deflector" (I built living qtrs in part of the pole barn, so don't want too much steam coming back in) is a piece of roofing tin attached only in the center to the lean-to rafters angled out; that way it droops down on each side forcing about 90% of the steam outside the lean-to.

I'm furiously trying to finish my RO; and it's not looking good. Base structure built and major components mounted, but the little stuff takes forever. And of course, I ran out of Argon for the TIG tonight. As usual, should have started earlier. I'll probably miss my hoped for initial run this weekend and will just end up boiling what I can.

[easterro]

North Central Indiana reporting in: Fresh woodpecker damage has been weeping a lot of sap. That, plus the 10-day forecast had us start tapping on the 26th. I'd like to have all taps in by the weekend.

All indications seem to point to an early start. I hope it's a long season.

[dsaw]

I didn't get out during the week, so had about 90 gal of sap today from 81 taps. Put out 39 more today. Still boiling down right now, will still be boiling it tomorrow. I brought the RO out, but haven't had a chance to mess with it. It has a few more tweaks I'd like to make, but may try to test some water through it tomorrow. I wasn't sure how much sap I'd have. If I had too much, I would have put some effort into getting it going today; but I was borderline so I decided to to boil and get more taps out. Put the kids to work cleaning buckets and feeding the arch.

[Andrew Franklin]

I went to my property Saturday at Noon and had about 75 gallons from 30 taps on 3/16 that had collected since Thursday night. Boiled until 3:30 am and came home in the late morning with another 15 gallons that collected in the early morning - doing that on a turkey fryer. Looks like it will keep running through Tuesday!