Tapping in Franklin county

[DaveProsper]

Things ran good midweek last week and this week. Processing and boiling today, hoping for another 6-8 gallons of syrup. So far we've made a little over 12 gallons on a little less then 200 taps at the new sugarbush. Currently met our syrup per tap average we had last year (thank goodness), so we are at least at the worst case level of syrup production for the year (using last years as a standard). But thats from switching from buckets to lines (!) and I understand some folks have had an even worse season than last so far.

Still bits of snow on the ground, tiny buds, hoping we get one or two more good runs next week. Not hoping for miracles beyond that but hoping we get close to making 25 gallons this year, but I'm just happy our new setup and team are working great! Just a shame we don't have access to the birch trees like we did last year, making birch was fun and really did rescue our sales.

[DaveProsper]

Well what a turnaround! We ended up making over 30 gallons of maple so far with the last bursts of sap from our sugarbush in Brushton. Was hoping we'd get one last big run, but either the trees are shutting down, the nighttime temps aren't cold enough, or both. Either way we boil our last little bit tomorrow after we test, and we'll see just where we end up at the end of this season. Looking like maybe around 34-38 gallons. Not bad, especially with our late start - and way better than last year!

[DaveProsper]

Welcome 2023 sap season! Put in 175 last week in Brushton. Some folks are already boiling and I'm not sure if I'll have enough tomorrow or not myself to justify a first boil. We shall find out soon enough!

[DaveProsper]

It's flowing strong and the forecast for next week looks really good. I don't see any sign of buds yet so we may have a strong, late end of this season. Lots of sand in my syrup this year, though- it's not quite at birch levels but its surprising nonetheless!

[The Heldeberg Sapper]

It's flowing strong and the forecast for next week looks really good. I don't see any sign of buds yet so we may have a strong, late end of this season. Lots of sand in my syrup this year, though- it's not quite at birch levels but its surprising nonetheless!

Lots of sugar sand down here in Albany county as well. Its been a really good year so far, weather is looking good for next week as well but i am thinking i will be throwing in the towel this weekend. Ive made more than expected already and i am getting tired and low on wood haha.

[DaveProsper]

Still going here! One other thing I've noticed this year is that my sugar is a bit low, and people are a bit down in general, at least in my area (Potsdam-Malone).
The red buds are getting large in Potsdam, but are still small at my sugarbush in Brushton. It was flowing strong yesterday so who knows - we may have another couple of runs left. Last year my final boil was April 8 - it's getting awfully close!

[DaveProsper]

We did our final outdoor boil on the 9th (Sunday) and today I'm boiling down what was left in the tank. Overall we got slightly more syrup per tap this year on our second year of tubing - and lessons learned! Expecting to get better yields next year as we redo some of our lines and reduce the number of taps per lateral.
Regardless there was more sand earlier in the season but it dropped off, and our sugar remained a bit low the entire time compared to last year. So we had several gallons more sap per tap than last year, but only a couple ounces more per tap of syrup overall. On to cleanup and bottling!

[DaveProsper]

We tapped last weekend (Sunday and Monday 2/23-24) for around 180 initial taps on tubing in Brushton. The snow drifts were chest deep in some spots we we tapped high on the trees, and had to wear snowshoes. No flow in the cooler Sunday weather, and only a few trees on our western side even trickled on Monday during the first part of the warm
up. It's taken them a while to wake up, but we've had a very cold winter with a lot of snow. Our pump hasn't been started yet, and gravity got us maybe 15 gallons as of yesterday afternoon. Nice and clear though- at least our new tubing cleaning protocol seems to have worked great.

Will be dropping by today to tighten the wires and check up on the status. It warmed up with some rain overnight and the deer were frolicking this morning- so we may have some sap flow. If not, it's looking like the coming week will be our first big run 🤞

[DaveProsper]

We still haven't had a big sap run! It has been a weird winter. Hoping things get unstuck later this week, but the weather forecast is looking like a warmup that keeps getting warmer...not the greatest. We'll see...