I tapped 100 on Sunday and Monday. A few had up to a gallon or two today but most had a pint to a quart. Looks good in a few days though
I tapped 100 on Sunday and Monday. A few had up to a gallon or two today but most had a pint to a quart. Looks good in a few days though
2006 - 12 taps on open fire
2011 - 50 taps new 2 x 4 flat pan + warmer
2012 - 65 taps new 16 x 16 sugar shack
2013- 75 taps and no more, well maybe 85 now
2016-97 taps
1 Lab and my wife's Springer
Was wondering how u guys were doing. Sap was flowing yesterday. Collected 135 gal on snowshoes will be starting a boil here shortly. If u guys are up to slumming n a beer i could meet u at odettes gate when i can get a wheeler to it. Probably take another week of melting tho.
Sounds good. We were out in snow shoes yesterday too. We only picked 65 gallons. In a couple weeks wheelers are probably going to be the preferred method of travel. The roads know its spring.
Goose52
Here is the updated RO system, made it shine this time.
Latitude location: 45° 51' 48.0" N
2013 - 48 taps and a home made arch / pan = 19 gallons
2014 - 74 taps and counting, upgrades to Arch
2015 - 98 taps and counting, NEW custom made Arch, 30hp New Holland tractor
2016 - 0 taps :-( had to skip this year
2017 - 100 taps and back in the game
2018 - 145 taps, NEW Sugar Shack & family and friends to help.
2019 - 170 taps, 30 gallons of Sticky Bush syrup
2020 - planning on retailing some Sticky Bush
2021 - adding gravity pipeline with 60 taps
Just put 25 taps up. Will do more tomorrow. Slow drip. I think we are just starting. In the watersmeet area
We had a pretty good weekend. Went through 320 gallons of sap ranging from 2-3% and made 11 gallons of syrup. My daughter jumped in and helped haul firewood and washed some barrels.
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Have about 30 taps set up. I dont live in the UP, family has a lakehouse so our caretaker gathers the sap for me during the week then I come up on the weekend to boil. Didn’t get up there until about 1 am on friday and then woke up at 6 am to get all the boiling equipment ready. Started boiling around 9:30 am. Had an astonishing brix reading of 3.9. About 3pm on saturday I started feeling the lack of sleep and was exhausted from hauling buckets and equipment around all morning. Fell asleep while sitting on my couch. Woke up about 45 minutes later and immediately realised that I had passed out for too long. Ran outside to charred, burnt maple syrup. 2 gallons of syrup made from a little over 40 gallons of sap down the drain. If you were in the UP on Satyrday April 6, 2019 and heard someone screaming and cussing at the top of their lungs, that was me.
Oh no! That sucks, hopefully you get some more decent weather and sap along with it. I've got an auto-feed on my setup this year that's been a big help. It's an insurance against nodding off or getting too busy. I tend to keep it flowing in at just slightly faster than it can boil off (on average). That way if I get busy/fall asleep and forget about it the worst that'll happen is it'll fill the boiling pan with sap as the fire slows.
All my life I wanted to make my own syrup. Now I'm livin' the dream!