Eastern Ontario 2022

[Bricklayer]

Bruce,
I’ve done the exact same thing many times. Never hits the steel toe. Always like 3” behind it.

[Galena]

Poor Bruce, I definitely felt that ouch on the chunk of wood hitting the top of the foot and not the toe, esp when you have steel toes on. Hurts like crazy. On the other hand, I've had my toes stepped on countless times by horses and yet never had a broken toe. Go figure.

ETA: Trees definitely slowing today, which sucks cause my sugar content is up - I'm around 28:1 at the moment. Usually 25-27:1 this time of year. Probably the fact that there is a red on the line (still hasn't fluffed out yet) is a factor. Anticipating an increasingly slower run will probably pull by the weekend. Hate to see sap dribble from the spile holes.

[Bruce L]

Had a good nights sleep,high potency pain killers,so was able to get one bush pulled and tubing washed this morning,side effects of the pills though is I feel nauseous. Now to fill the pans with the distilled water I saved from the steam away this afternoon so they’ll be done by the weekend

[paulslund]

Last boil tonight.. pump is pulling the last few drops it can from the trees.. buckets have dried up.. barely an inch in the bottom of some of them..and those are the full ones.. I think I have about 70+L to get through, so that will be a quick boil, which is good..I think I have just enough wood to get through that. Sap is looking much cloudier than the weekend (but still made medium I think.. I actually don't know how to grade this stuff.. I just go by yum or yummier) so will test a pot on the stove before firing up. Will be shutting off the pump and pulling the buckets tonight an then start clean up tomorrow.

[DrTimPerkins]

Stick of wood dropped off the woodpile and hit right on the top of my foot where you tie your shoelaces.

Common type of baseball injury from a tipped ball. Very painful and takes a while to heal. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

[ennismaple]

We're still going strong north of Hwy 7! Another 2 GPT of 2.2 Brix sap over the past 2 days is being processed this afternoon.

[Galena]

Gaaahhh trees trying to kill me...got 26l today, not enough to fire up evap so doing in house, I should open a freakin spa here...some slightly cloudy sap but not overly concerned, never been an issue in the past, it's fine otherwise.

[paulslund]

Boiled down the last 80L yesterday evening.. Buckets barely had anything in them so dumped then.. lots of flies in them.. (although in hindsight I should have kept it as it probably totaled 10L). Sap was very cloudy with signs that some fermentation (or is that microbial action?) is occurring as I'm seeing floaty things in the barrel.. Test pot on the stove was good. I think sugar is down though as I think I'll have a bit less than 2L whereas other batches have been around 33:1 (or something..give or take.. haven't bottled all my batches yet). Funny thing is this is the lightest batch I've made all season.

I've pulled the buckets, and turned off the pump.. I debated keeping it on as it still pulled 80L from 23 taps over 2 days..but I'm out of wood and out of snow so no way to keep the sap cool until I could boil again. So I'm calling it a season. I think I pulled almost 1500L of sap this year with yesterday's haul. Syrup count to be determined.

Martin..I wonder if you've had colder weather even though you're only about 1.5 hour away from Ottawa.. all my snow is gone over here..

Good luck to everyone still at it!
Paul.

[Galena]

Tiny amounts of sap in the pails, spiles drying up...also heard seagulls this a.m....all signs to stop . Will collect what is left and add to batch 5 which is going to be massive. What a season.

ETA: just collected the last of the sap, just shy of 3l, some has a slight whiff to it. Will cook it up separately before deciding what to do with it. Short season, only a month for me!

[ennismaple]

Martin..I wonder if you've had colder weather even though you're only about 1.5 hour away from Ottawa.. all my snow is gone over here..

Paul - we still have some snow on the north facing slopes and our cedar swamps are mostly frozen over. We also benefit from being on the edge of Bennett Lake which is still frozen over and creates a colder micro-climate later in the season.

I have 5000+ gallons of pretty decent looking sap to get through again today. Incoming sap is down to 2.0 Brix, which is normal late in the season without a freeze up. Hopefully we can get through tomorrow to the cooler temps forecast for the weekend.