2018 Season

[Dennis H.]

I can now say that the 2018 sugar'in season is now on.

Took me 2 days to tap the trees. I wanted to make a few changes with a few of the Lat's and add a few trees that I never picked up before.

Today was leak patrol, did not have too many, only about 6 spots that I had to repair. One was a bug hole that was about 1" from the tap. Somehow I did not see that but I sure could hear it.

Sap was running nicely when I left the cabin, releaser was dumping about ever 3 min and I already had over 50 gals in the tank. If it keeps running like that till this evening I may have an almost full tank.

Then once I got home I had to hurry and put the sap tank on the truck for hauling and also get the RO together and rinsed.

SO all told the past 3 days have been very busy and looong.

[Dennis H.]

Looks like I will be jumping in deep end head first this season.
Sap tank was almost full today, 1st run of the season! The rest of the week looks just as good so I may be a little busy.

Looked at me records and my 1st boil last season was Jan 22nd and 1st this season is the 21st.

[Paddymountain]

Same here Dennis H. Saturday was just a trickle. I was wondering why my vacuum wasn't working.
Finally about 4:30 it broke loose and we were getting some sap. I ended up with about 120 gallons til noon
yesterday. Also gathered 80 gallon from gravity bushes. I got it all boiled last night, and are hoping for
enough of a run today to boil tonight. Looks like freeze up after today for awhile. First time boiling in January.

[minehart gap]

Dennis, sounds like you might be in for a good week.

I tapped 163 on Friday. Started about noon and had flow by 2:30. Leak patrol the rest of the day and all day yesterday. A lot of my spiles are not seating. I tap until the sound changes but I’m just not getting it. Laterals show no leaks then an hour later there is a line of bubbles. Might be the change in temperature in the trees. First boil was today.

[Paddymountain]

Still waiting on the weather. I made a little syrup the last weekend in January, but freeze up since.
The weather is starting to look better for this weekend and beyond. Have all my tubing tapped, about 360, won't put
any buckets out just yet

[sticknstring]

Well, yesterday, the girls and I made our first "collection". From 3 trees, 4 taps total we gathered right around 3 gallons of sap. I was hoping/thinking there would be more than that but we were excited nonetheless to get our first bit of sap. So given that information, 3 gallons from 4 taps in 3 different trees, I planned to make the 40 minute trip up to our ground before daybreak this morning to collect what we may have from the two trees the girls and I tapped on Monday night. Now up there, it tends to be a degree or two less on average, so I expected much of the same from those the trees we tapped up there as we got back home.

So, this morning, I made my first big rookie mistake;^) I just don't know which lesson I learned from it..... I either learned that you should never take one 5 gallon bucket to collect sap from two taps that have their own 5 gallon bucket because each one may be 3/4 full and you will have just driven 40 minutes one way to not be able to haul all of your sap home. Or, I learned that if you are worried that you may have done something wrong because you are getting very much sap from one set of trees, you can get rid of that worry by only taking one 5 gallon bucket to collect sap from two taps that each have their own 5 gallon bucket because you expected to do just as "poorly" there, so each bucket will be 3/4 full so you have just driven 40 minutes one way and are not able to haul all of your sap home.

Either way, it was pretty exciting to get what feels like our first "good run". just 12 hours ago, I was worried we would really have enough sap to bother building a fire to evaporate on Sunday. Now, I am thinking that if things keep running like that, I may not be able to store all of it until Sunday. We have 8 gallons in the "deer/beer fridge" staying cool, at least another 2 gallons left in the bucket from this morning and room for about another 15 or so gallons in the fridge before I would need to freeze it.

My wife leave for Elk county on Friday afternoon, so I do have a question. With the temps yesterday and last night being 37 and above, a high today of 64, low tonight of 49 and high tomorrow of 52 before it gets back down to 21 tomorrow night, is it imperative that I get back up to the ground before it freezes tomorrow night to collect the last couple gallons I had to leave up there so it doesn't go bad? It is going to be really tight for me to get back up tonight or tomorrow night, most likely will need to go up either late tonight or well before daybreak tomorrow. I would rather not but then again, I definitely don't want to lose any sap.

Thanks in advance for any advice

[Dennis H.]

Ran for sap this morning and found that the trees gave me another 230 gallons since yesterday evening.
Not too bad.

As for the warm temps, there is still a little ice in the ground at the sugarbush. Very wet but when you start to walk around you can still feel the crunchy ice. That should help holds things over thru these warm spells.

So far this season is looking really good. Collected a total of 2460 gallons of sap.

[Dennis H.]

Minehart Gap, I understand your pain with the leaks.
I tapped the trees the day before the warmer temps so the trees were still frozen and the next day a lot of the trees had sap weeping around the tap. Gave each one a light tap with my tapping hammer and it appears to fix that.

[Dennis H.]

Strange week of weather so far.
I figured that with the rain and warm temps over the weekend it would get the sap flowing again but it really does not want to flow.
It is looking like we should get some really warm temps the next few days, wait and see I guess.

[Dennis H.]

Ah, the there can not be that much up there mistake. I can guarantee that from now on you will be carrying more than enough buckets with you.

As for the sap if it is in the sap it may start to turn on you. Now if it is shaded where the buckets sit and if there is still any snow on the ground around the buckets you may be able to get away from running up tonight.

Years past if I needed to store sap a few days, now this is before I got large tanks, and we still had snow around, I would fill the buckets with sap put the lids on and bury them with snow.

Good luck, and by the way I do not think it matters how many years you have been or will be doing this you will always make a bone headed mistake from time to time. I hate valves, we use entirely too many valves to keep track of, not saying anymore.