2/19

[dcast99]

Sap was really flowing yesterday and today. Tapped my bucket trees today at 10am and by 4pm I had over a gallon from each tree. One even gave me 2 gls. Total for the two days is 640 gls. Hopefully the repaired syrup pan holds out because I have a lot of boiling to do.

[5050racing]

Good luck with all dcast99 !! I didn't even collect yesterday I just let it overflow and collected 150 now I have it down to 40 only started evaporator at noon today till now,we tasted our dandelion wine we made last spring!! WOW The whole opperation got slowed down after that then lots of friends showed up all day,fun day lots of wood choppers GREAT !

[dcast99]

Got a bunch of friends coming tomorrow to check things out since it's a holiday for them. The guy with the homemade moonshine doesn't show up until the middle of the season. You don't have all of your wood chopped yet?

[5050racing]

It's all 5yr old oak under cover split but I just split it even smaller for that hot fire,John NJ saw how I do it,it's all super dry so I can use it in wood stove if need as emergency supply if I couldn't get up to other barn in a big big snow,

[John-NJ]

Processed 140 gallons from the 18th. Syrup came out real dark, but good.
Trees seemed to poop out towards the afternoon, think they need some cool weather to recharge. Collected a total of 110 gallons. Gonna leave the vacuum off today (20th); I need to do a bunch of stuff today and tomorrow, and won't have time to cook more than the 110.

Tonight it will at least freeze again. Hope the warm weather coming is not going to create a repeat of last year - trees pop then get hit with a hard frost again. That was the end of the season for me. Last year apple trees started blooming, then the cold weather came and killed a lot of the blooms --a lot fewer apples.

Let's keep good thoughts for a bit longer season

Regards

[dcast99]

Boiled off 400 gls of the 640 I brought back yesterday. All nice light syrup. Didn't bottle any of it yet. We'll start doing that after the first draw off tomorrow. The syrup still seems to leak a little. Hopefully the ones in the center of the pans will seal up. No real build of of niter in the pans yet. It also seem that most of the perimeter welds are also leaking. Atleast they sealed up. Pretty sad that a 4 year old Leader pan develops holes in the center of the pan and all the welds leak.