I will finish putting in my 60-70 taps today, but I've got 55 degrees and sun down here in Gorham today. Definitely need to do what the weather is telling you to do in your neck of the woods; i'd guess up north it's still early, but I like MV's approach of doing a few test taps and see how trees are thawing out. Cool! And hopefully everyone gets a run next week, but then back to below freezing it looks like for a week or so (if you believe the 2 week forecast...)
On today's run, I've got about a gallon in each bucket so far, so looks like I'm RO-ing first thing tomorrow morning and boiling afterwards! I did something that I hope helps preserve my sap: I dumped a 5 gallon pail of water into my storage barrel 2 nights ago when it was 10 degrees over night to create a block of ice to keep the sap cool while I collect it today. We don't have much snow (2-3 inches of snow/sleet melted into an ice skating rink) so i don't have a snow bank to store it in. North side shade is the only friend I have right now, and my quickly melting ice cube...
2023 - 40-ish taps (25-30 “effective” ones), tapped mostly in New Year’s Eve. 5 gallons of syrup.
2022 - 70 taps - 12 gallons of syrup
2021 - 72 taps ~ 8 gallons of syrup
2020 - 8 taps on droplines into buckets, stove top boil, < 1 gallon syrup
A neighborhood consortium of red maple trees, a renegade group of neighborhood kids emptying 5 gallon buckets, a homemade RO, a 3 pan cinderblock evaporator near the street, and 1 very patient wife