Thanks for the advice on tapping branched trunks. I'll probably skip that tree as I'm not desperate. After the quick warm up last year and a shortened season, I'm adding trees I haven't tapped previously, mainly reds, to get more sap early in the event of a repeat season. The weather, to me, remains wacky.
To answer turnerburner, I'm tapping tomorrow and Thursday. It's a convenient time and in line with past seasons, at least for me. Two cooler days followed by what could be a good first run next week. Maybe some sap Thursday/Friday but we'll see. Canterbuy Maple 's got some flow going on southern Maine, so maybe central Maine can join in.
Two 2x4 concrete block arches with three steam trays each
Tapping in Mount Vernon since 2016, 30 to 70 taps, 5/16" tube to 1.5 to 3.5 gallon buckets, some trees on collective gravity tubing to 5 gallon buckets.
Mostly sugar maples, a few reds on 200 year old homestead