Author: SugarMaster Page 23 of 94

Snow started around 3:00 AM. Got about 4” of snow by 11:00 AM. Everything is white again. Thunder over an open woods holds true again.

30 overnight. Cloudy and 34 today.

A thunderstorm moved though last night starting around 5:00 PM. It’s early in the year for a thunderstorm. Lots of lightning. At 6:00 PM there was a flash of lightning and the electricity went out. Power out until 10:30 PM. Over 1” of rain. Snow settled, but the ground is still frozen and the water collects in small ponds. Thunder over an open woods (no leaves) means more snow will come. And snow is forecast overnight: 1 inch.

Mid 40s today and cloudy. Forecast is high 20s tonight. Colder tomorrow with high about 35 but still cloudy. Tuesday and Wednesday look promising.

The evaporator is patched: a new metal plate welded to the back under the stack. Should get us through a few more years.

Checked the buckets today after the rain. Some had a quart or maybe two. But the sap tested at less then 1 Brix. It was mixed with rain. We dumped it. Get a few start this week.

35 overnight. Cloudy and up to 45 today. Rain started late afternoon. Rain forecast overnight with possible thunderstorms. Temperature rises to 50 overnight then drops to 35.

Into the woods by 8:00 AM. Cleaned and setup the storage tanks. Took the storage tank covers to the farmhouse to wash. Brought a milk can of water to wash the tanks. And prepared the valves: they get a coating of food grade grease to keep them nimble. Both the 225 gallon storage tank and the 175 gallon concentrate tank are ready.

Also cleaned the 225 gallon collecting tank. We need that for hauling water for the R/O.

Also brought the R/O to the syrup building from the farmhouse.

Tree pressure hit 7 PSI, but the ground is still too cold for a sap run.

Tomorrow a friend is doing a welding repair on the evaporator. The back by the stack is badly rusted and needs repairs.

11 overnight. Sunny and 35, but when it starts at 11 it takes a long time to warm up. And the ground is still very cold. Not much melt even with the direct sun.

Wintery mix for tonight with rain forecast for tomorrow with highs in the 40s.

Plan to setup tanks and get the building ready tomorrow.

Put out the tree pressure gauge. It helps track sap flows and is interesting to watch. Pressure fluctuations show the tree is alive.

12 overnight. Sunny today but only up to 27. This weekend it warms. Some forecasts say up to 50 which is getting too warm.

Into the woods by 7:00 AM to start tapping. Had 100 buckets out by 8:30 AM. Sunny and up to 40. Sap starting to move but the ground is still frozen.

Returned to the woods by 4:00 PM to tap 101 more. Planned for 100 but discovered we drilled an additional hole.

We also crushed one bucket after it fell off the tractor and was run over. Oops.

Into the woods at 9:00 AM to clean the evaporator. The goal was to complete by 3:00 PM. We achieved the goal. Very easy to clean the evaporator this season because it only cooked sap from 20% of our usual number of taps.

Still have to clean finishing and bottling pans. Wash filter press, milk cans and the floor. Then bring equipment back to the farmhouse.

Into the woods by 6:00 AM to bottle the last milk can of syrup. It was a small batch and ready to filter by 6:45 AM. Done bottling by 7:30 AM. Back to the farmhouse by 7:45 AM. 9 quarts.

Season total: 21 gallons.

We have to review and recalculate our sap numbers. We are happy to get 21 gallons, but it seems high based on the sap we collected and our expected yield per tap.

Into the woods at 11:00 AM to get syrup on the finishing pan. Small batch only took 35-40 minutes to get to density. Done bottling by 1:00 PM. 3 gallons and 2 pints puts us over 18 ½ gallons.

One more batch to finish and bottle from the last of the evaporator.

68 today.