2024 season

[Brian]

Well got the sleds started going to see if I can get to the woods tomorrow.Hoping to start tapping on monday. I hope the wind storm didn't do to much damage but we will see!!!

[Andy VT]

Well, Brian, how'd that go?
I'm doing buckets over here and thinking of aiming for March 1 tapping and letting the 10 day forecast move me up or down a week.
This is my 4th year and I've always tapped too early, but less so each year.
I have roughly half norways and half sugar, the sugars being far far larger.
The norways have good sugar content but far far less overall output.
A neighbor down the street tapped a norway on the March 11th last year and made more than a quart of syrup from one tap (probably didn't go to 70 brix or even 66 but still!).
So, whatever date I pick for the sugar maples, I'm going to try a few days later for the norways this year and see if they produce a bit more overall.

[Brian]

Well it has been a trip, we have made 21.5 barrels so far this season. I got over a foot of snow too. So here we go, after this freeze it should be running this week. Good Luck to All

[Brian]

The worst year was 2015 we only made 700 gallons. The snow was so deep, we never started tapping until the 15-18 of march and that season was over april 7. It was fall before I got all the maple venders paid off. I called them and made payments and no one complained and they still give me credit at times.

[Brian]

The north woods is tapped but took alot more time than last year, there is 15-16 hundred taps over there and 3 days with 3 of us because the snow was so deep. One section of it was redone this year and the brush is so deep that i feared breaking snow shoes so we post holed. The other section has a good brook that runs through it and it is hard to keep crossing with snow shoes on.The snow is about 2ft on the average over there. We started the southside yesterday and put in a 1000 taps, I should have brought more but was hoping to get that many in. That woods has 2500 taps, we are headed back tomorrow to see if we can get the other 1500 in. The snow on the south side is only to my knees on the average and smooth going. There will be 4 of us tomorrow I hope. None of my woods are easy to get to, they require alot of walking. None of the sap runs into the sugarhouse it is all trucked in. Hope to be done this week. I have a few things to fix!! Thank you Mr. Squirrel and Assoc.

When I ran buckets we took our average end date and back up 6 weeks and that was our tap date. That is what my uncle taught me to do and worked great for me. I start tapping early because I never know if I will have any help any more and planpn doing it all by myself because all the people that use to help are too old or moved on and you just never know.

[Andy VT]

Wow! That's some work! And will be lots of syrup.
Yep, that's one thing I've picked up... buckets and vacuum are two different animals.
Seeing a lot of first year facebook sugarers getting really confused by that, like I was at first!

[VT_K9]

We were lucky to re-route a mainline and extend it for a total of 1000'. This will pick up an additional 75 or so taps with a chance to branch off for a few more in the future. The mainline running was completed before snow started to accumulate. We are running the sap lines and will spin seal those in this week. Need to rebuild both releasers and plumb the new mainline into a releaser.

On a side note, a neighboring sugar maker has a new 20k tap bush and the tapped back in December. They have been boiling since and are tapping their other bushes. Definitely an odd year. I feel like I am a little behind and would like to be tapped now. Maybe this weekend.

Mike

[Brian]

The sap ran today and it was cold all day around 34-36 deg.F and was 24 deg. this morning. The truck is unloading right now and is the sec load tonight there is 1000 gallons behind the tractor to be unloaded. I still need to go get the sap on White Rd tonight with the sap truck. That should be about 8000-8500 gallons af sap in the last 24 hrs. The ro is running and hoping to get it through the first pass to night then the second pass tomorrow and boil in the morning. Good night headed to check the truck!!

[Brian]

Getting ready to wash pipeline this sat, then the next sat, and hopfully be done after that. The clean up takes a while, the sugar house looks like a bomb went off getting things sorted and put away. The pans are clean and throwing out the membrains and going to get new ones these are 8 yrs old and starting to slow down. Time to speed her up!!

[Brian]

The sap truck blew an air hose, the tractor blew a hydro. seal and got 1 of my 4-wheelers fixed and droped off an other to get fixed 2000.00 later back at it. The barrels are getting low we are at 43 barrel and the sec best year so far. I have never made .5 per tap that would be great. Last year we only made 32 barrels.