North East Ohio 2024

[johnallin]

Ready for another season up here in NE Ohio.
Have been working some in the sugar house but honestly haven't spent much time in the woods yet.
Anyone made any big changes for this year?
I'm pretty much status quo with new drops and taps planned and getting some windblown "stuff" off my lines.

Heard Fred has a line on a new "clear" candy machine...good to see him finally seeing the light

[Kh7722]

Ready for another season up here in NE Ohio.
Have been working some in the sugar house but honestly haven't spent much time in the woods yet.
Anyone made any big changes for this year?
I'm pretty much status quo with new drops and taps planned and getting some windblown "stuff" off my lines.

Heard Fred has a line on a new "clear" candy machine...good to see him finally seeing the light

Now he can probably see his lantern through the clear machine haha.

Added 450 taps at home woods, installed a second pump house, and got a new vac pump on the woods side.
For the sugarhouse we got a lapierre glass bead filter that filters down to 3 microns, sometimes better. Excited to see how that works.

[Frankies Family Farm]

2nd year for me, and I am super excited. Nowhere near the sophisticated level of many of individuals in NEohio but ready to get to work.

Last year I tapped 3 trees, and cooked with a turkey fryer, this year will be 20. using (3) 20x12x6 pans cooking with a 3burner propane camp stove.
My 3y/o loves it and we were busy during the offseason looking/teaching her to identify red/sugar and silver trees. She helped clear more efficient paths as well to the trees.

Will follow on here to see when tapping should begin, but based on past Ohio years looks like a lot of you start setting up around 1st week-February, so I planned to at least start setting up around 2.5.24.

[djhemme]

I'm going to heed the words of my teachers from back in the day when they said "there's no such thing as a dumb question" and "if you're wondering it chances are someone else is too". I understand I'm typing this in the middle of a winter storm, but is anyone looking at the next week or two for early tapping? Temps in the mid-upper 40s should bring us out of the deep freeze we've been in this week. Last year I tapped just over 1/3 of my trees on Jan. 22 and the rest a week or so later, and didn't regret it. I know that was an unseasonable warm winter, but it that seems to be the trend we've been heading in the last few years. Just wanted to get people's thoughts. Happy tapping whenever you choose to do so.

[RC Maple]

but is anyone looking at the next week or two for early tapping?

I was looking forward to the coming thaw and watching the forecast which seemed good until I looked again today. Except for AccuWeather (which seems to overly predict lower nighttime temps), all my weather sources show no temps below 30 for the next two weeks. It changes again every day though, but I don't like that trend.

[Kh7722]

Will finish tapping tomorrow and start leak checks.
Hopefully have syrup by the weekend.