I suspect we are about a week to ten days away from our first run. Despite this we tapped about a third of the trees yesterday. Had to use snowshoes and it was easy going with the crust and 20 inches of snow. Will put out the rest of the taps later next week. Bought some 1/4 inch hollow braided rope and threaded about 2-3 feet on the 3/16 hose to secure the lines coming into the sugar shack. The old Chinese finger trick really worked great.