2010 Season West Virginia Mapler

[KenWP]

I am worried that may happen here also. We are ahead of schedule here also compared to last year. But one never knows. So far the fat ladys have stayed away. Sunday the forecast is for no freezeing at nights for a few days. Time will tell.

[220 maple]

Brandon,
It maybe over for 2010. Sort of sad for it to quit with the tap holes still fresh.
We have nothing to complain about. We have boiled 13 straight days tonight.
Helpers are getting tired and almost out of wood. Only 870 taps open and over 9000 gallons of water that has avg. 2.3 to 2.5. I hoping for a freeze next Monday or Tuesday, I want to see if these checkvalve spouts are worth the money. One good freeze and I'll know.

Mark 220 Maple

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mark,

Glad you are having a good year. At least northern part of state is doing better than we are. We are at about 3.5 gallons of sap per tap and no freezing in sight for next 10 days still to get the trees started. I was fairly sure with the season starting so late this year, it was going to be bad, just didn't expect it to be this bad. Unless something changes, it is by far the worst I have ever seen in 20 years.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Picked up another 163 gallons yesterday morning that had trickled in from Tues evening until yesterday morning. We are at 2,080 gallons of sap from basically 5 to 6 days of sap running. Amazing as the sugar sand is almost nonexistent this year and sugar content seems good. The sap has been so crystal clear that I could read the newspaper laying on the bottom of a 625 gallon milk tank full of sap.

If there is no more sap, hope no one wants any darker syrup as most of the syrup this year is extremely light syrup with no dark except the 1.5 gallons of extra black from my dumb mistake on the first boil. Hope to can off nearly everything today but what's in the evaporator and the 1.5 gallons of extra dark and should have a good idea of seasons totals. Been praying hard for another freeze or two, but not looking promising at this point.

[220 maple]

Brandon,
What going on at Grassy Meadows, no posts for a long time. I hope everybody is well at that camp. They usually make a effort to keep everyone informed on how there season is going?

Mark 220 Maple

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Larry Harris is in the same boat as me. He put in about 40% of his taps(150) around Jan 14th and 15th and made about 10 gallon of syrup then, but since then, he has gotten about 5 days of sap like I have and he is not getting nearly as much sap as I am when he normally gets more, go figure.

Got to 28 last night for a couple of hours first freeze in 8 days and probably got 100 to 150 gallons of sap in the tanks. Missed about 3 or 4 hours of sap run as all my lines were out of the tanks and buckets inverted on the trees before my helper was able to get them in place. Wasn't supposed to get that cold last night and calling for 28 tonight before it gets really warm thru the weekend. Supposed to hit 23 Monday night, so hoping the holes are still running next week and we may get a pretty good run.

Good thing with sap running on the ground this morning for a little while, it flushed out all the bad sap in the lines so the sap is all nice and clear.

[220 maple]

Brandon,

I too had a freeze, 27 degrees and hopefully again tonight. If the sky stay clear we can survive another heatwave this weekend. I actually had trees still running yesterday. I couldn't believe my eyes. I guess it 's because of the vacuum??


Mark 220 Maple

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Boiled off 355 gallons today that ran from about noon on Wed thru yesterday evening. Sap was a little cloudy, but pretty good considering it has been 60 or above every day with lots of sun. No freezing in sight for next 10 days, so we are likely done. Too busy at work next week to worry about removing taps and flushing lines, so they will still be in place if we get a major change in weather. 220 taps on North side in 2 weeks today and we are at about 40 to 45 percent of a normal crop. Today is normal end of season, problem is we started about 3 + weeks later than normal and have only had 1 good day of sap flow and 6 other mediocre or poor days of flow. One of those years vacuum wouldn't made much of a different here, just went from cold to warm and basically no freezing at nights.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Still hoping down here, haven't boiled since last Saturday and normally by now, all my taps are out of the trees and lines cleaned as season is usually over by March 21st. Supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow and hit 25 tomorrow night, so still hoping for more sap this weekend and maybe a little more next week.

Might stick in about 12 more taps tomorrow to catch the next run, this late in the year, might get 50 to 60 gallons from the 12 new taps in 2 or 3 days. Put about 5 gallon of storage per tap and see what happens.

All 615 taps still in the trees, but I imagine the south side taps are about fried, but maybe they will give a little. North side only been in 3 weeks this weekend.

[Russell Lampron]

Brandon vacuum might have made a difference. The sap will flow for days without a freeze if there is plenty of moisture around. Hope you get more sap this weekend.