Tapped in Chester

[berkshires]

Pulled taps last weekend. Not the greatest season, but not the worst.

I had one new thing happen - a bucket blew off the tree. I thought the wind had pulled the spile out, but it turned out it had snapped the spile in half. Unfortunately, it was on the best run of the year, so I lost one tap's worth of good sap on one of my best trees, for a full week. I was able to get the remaining chunk of tap out without damaging the hole, and get a new tap put in to the same hole.

I am very excited about my new Mason 2 x 3. I was able to get a couple of boils on it at the end. I really need more sap to put it through its paces properly. I never got anywhere close to syrup in the divided pan, and treating a divided pan like a simple flat pan is a bit of a pain. Particularly at shut-down. I plan to put in more taps next season, so we'll see how that goes. I didn't buy the blower, because I don't have electricity. I saw a lot more black smoke coming out of the smokestack than I'd like, and wasn't getting as strong a boil as I'd like. I'll try splitting wood a little smaller next season, I think that should help.

I got a batch of light, which some people like, a bunch of regular amber, and a good bit of dark, which is my favorite. So no complaints.

Hope the rest of your seasons go/end well.

Cheers,

GO