SweetCreek Sugarworks

[Edward Howell]

Tapped 600 by 1/27/16 , 5,000 gal sap and 50 gallons syrup by 2/6 , all grade b It was 60 + 2 runs and 52 sunday 2/7

Still good old 1% woods , The whole system is working great just ( To Darn Hot ! ) Having to do 3 and 4 hot water washes on the ro before it will clean up .

Happily we have a good freeze setting in , looks like 2/15 we fire up again , wash the machine and start out fresh

Had to take the vacuum pump apart to clean up the Bakelite veins and don't ya know the silly thing decided to hold 22 inches , best it ever did was 18 inches go figure

Put the uv light back into the system , see if we can kill some of those bugs before they get to the 1,000 holding tank .....

[Edward Howell]

There is a country song (Waiting on a Woman ) ...... Big thaw but 34 to 36 tops with cold rain and no sunshine , miserable weather , but there is some sunshine today ....

Sadly though we are suppose to see 59 deg tomorrow and 64 deg Saturday . -6 deg on 2/14 to 64 deg 2/19 , sap will be boiling in the lines

Farmim baby .....

[Edward Howell]

Run started 10:30friday morning , 1900 gallons by 6:30 Saturday evening , with the vacuum shut off over friday nite , all 1500 storage full ,

but the sap temp went to 69 deg , I turned the system to dump the syrup was to strong @ 6:30 sat nite

The sap was still pouring in sat @ 6:30 I would guess this to be around a 4 to 4.5 gpt run

System again working great , just to hot ! Now we start working on un pluging the ro ..... This hot sap really jams the membranes

No real freeze until 2/26 Waitin on a Woman

[Edward Howell]

3/4/16 Checked the actual high temps for feb 1 to today ( 8 days 60 to 65 deg) ( 5 days 50 to 60 deg ) These kinds of temps are death to the tap holes .

If there is any life left we should have 1 more run 3/5 to 3/8 , then it is steady 70 deg

If these temp patterns persist , it will not be practical to make syrup in this area any longer ......

8000 gallons sap & 74 gallons syrup , .123 gallon per tap ,( minimum is usually .25 per tap )