3-6...Got my twin boys to help this Sat. and got the 2x6 set up and is ready to go..spilt some wood..some trees are going but the most of mine are on the north side and have a good snow pack ..collected some sap...rainy forecast..the snow is going down out in he open fields
3-9 Snow is leaving in leaps and bounds...Heard my first turkey gobble of the season this am....Collecting some sap but not much..Was down by the creek colecting this noon and a guy stopped to talk... we fish together at times and wanted a fish report...Right next to the road there is a big dead oak that I been wanting to cut for a few years now..it has alot of dead limbs on it so I am wary of it...we took off some of the dead bark and low and behold there was ice under that old bark...so the trees are still very cold acording to that...Mark Casper called it on this weather.... no hurry with this cool and rainy spell....hopfuly this weather will straighten out...
3-11..Wow what weather...warm.rainy and very foggy..Robins were singing the last two mornings...last two nights had meetings and going and getting back home was tuff to see the road ...people had storys at the meetings of missing turn offs and getting lost in the fog...of course the trees are doing zip... I am still waiting on the back ordered roll of tubing ...is a good thing maybe...so I still got trees to tap...and got 80 gal of sap...it wont keep forever so thats bugging me to get it cooked...alls we can hope that this weather will turn....
3-12..Finally a day with out rain and fog ....went around and dumped the buckets with tree water in them....some trees are runnin ever so slowly but are doing something...helped the neighbor cut a tree along the road... one to cut and one to watch for cars...he said he saw a Bluebird today...alittle early for them and had a deer tick crawlin on his ear too.. this weather is nuts....will collect tomarrow and fire up the evap....Just for fun....
How hard is it raining in Mauston this morning? Im in SE WI and its raining pretty good here. Wanted to head over to the bush in Iowa County today to finish some odds and ends on the arch. Im way behind this year, but it looks like I will get another week to get my act together. Hoping the extended weather forecast holds up this time. Im thinking of tapping next Thurs or Fri.
Wish I would have become a meteorologist!! Where else can you be wrong all the time, get paid to be wrong all the time and still keep your job!!! HA
3-13..We didnt get alot of rain here a strong 1/2"-3/4...fired up the 2x6 today all went well just enough sap to sweeten up both pans real good... drained them off and put them in the snow bank to stay cool..now I am ready for a sap run when it comes...will have to go fishing till then...
3-14..Wow the snowbank took a big hit today...almost 70 today...took the tarp off the wood pile and covered the snowbank that was cooling the syrup and sap pan dregs from yesterdays cook... and some beer of course....in the afternoon went out and tapped a few trees with buckets...two taps per bucket with drops to the bucket....all ran after the drill came out...ran another line from the bluff down towards the barrel... 14 taps on this line but did not set the taps short about a 100 foot of tubing from the last tree to the barrel...hope the back ordered tubing gets here early this week...most trees in the woods were dripin but the ones out in the open were shut down....some frost in the ground by the trees at the creek on the north side and them were producing .....
Cold trees woke up
So I went down to the bush to collect what I thought would only be 2 gallons or so from 70 trees and got over 4 gallons from 10 trees that had not been producing much at all, so I guess they warmed up now. I ended up leaving my 7 gallon pail in the bush full until tomorrow. Looked like a lot of the trees had a half gallon in the pail after 2 days of dripping. Last time we waited 2 days we only got 4 gallons altogether. I'm sure it won't keep going without some cold weather.
First year 2009
18 taps on 12 trees
boiled in 3 gal. pot on electric stove in garage
2010
111 taps on 93 trees
boiling in 200 gal. stainless tank, wood fire
3 sided sugar shack
3-17...this hot weather is unreal..the reds out in the open are budding out real well ..never collected this season on them...some years the buckets are runin over...took some buckets from there and tapped some hard maples back in the woods ...with the snow gone it makes carring sap alot easier...these were runin slowly when I tapped them today...got the roll of tubing today and hooked up the new line with 14 or so taps on that line these are reds up in the draw facing north....by the time I got the tubing to the barrel it was dripping also just tapped these...the trees down by the creek has 16 taps and been getting 12-15 gal off these.....the weather is suppose to cool off...maybe to late for reds out in the open..I have to target trees back in the woods...there still are more to tap but its all hand carry out....the snow bank is about gone....
3-18...another hot day...collected some sap today 18-20 gal... but its down to a drip or two....the snowbank by the evaporater is gone...but the snowbank down the road is still there but that was almost 10' high this winter....I have a burned out small chest freezer that was laying around...so I drug that over to the cooker and went down the road and got 7- 4gal buckets full of old snow and put it in the old freezer along with the syrup and sap pan dregs from the last cook...along with a beer or two ...in an hour or so it was down to 40 degrees...cooking Friday before the big cool down and rain thats supposed to come.....
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