Category: 2020: Season 103 Page 3 of 6

Into the woods at 7:00 AM to start the burners on the finishing pan. Planed to finish and bottle two milk cans today so we had to start early. By 8:30 AM filtered the first batch. Had it bottled by 9:45 AM. Second milk can into the finishing pan by 10:15. AM Filtering by 11:30 AM. Bottled by 12:45 PM.

Rain and 43 overnight. Cloudy and drizzle all day with temperature of 52. Forecast is 35 tonight. Partly cloudy and 40s tomorrow. We plan to collect. The season could be ending. We loose our freezing nights.

Back to the farmhouse by 1:15 PM.

No woods work. Cloudy. Rainy. 40s. Rain tonight.

Tomorrow we bottle.

Finished collecting yesterday at 4:30 PM. Finished cooking all 420 gals 23 hours later at 3:30 PM. R/O got 7 Brix.

Into the woods by 6:45 AM.

The days batches into the milk can.

9:30 1
10:50 2
11:50 3
12:45 4
1:45 5
3:00 6

Getting more nitre build up in the syrup pan.

Ice on the puddles this morning. Foggy in the morning. Cloudy all day. Temperature 45.

Collected 420 gallons today. More then expected. The tree pressure gauge was at 5-7 PSI the past day so sap was moving. PSI dropped to 0 this afternoon indicating the run is over. Started at 2:30 PM. Done by 4:30 PM. Still good sugar: 2 Brix.

40 overnight. Cloudy all day with temperature in mid 40s.

Into the woods by 6:30 AM. R/O going by 7:30 AM, finished by 1:00 PM. Finished cooking by 5:30 PM.

The day.

Batches
9:30 1
10:50 2
12:15 3
2:05 4
3:30 5

Concentrate Tank
1:00 10.5″
2:00 9″
3:00 6″
4:00 4″
5:00 2″
5:30 1″

30 overnight. 52 and cloudy today, but the sun did appear for a few hours this afternoon. Rain forecast for tonight.

Into the woods at 2:30 PM to collect. Done by 5:15 PM. 475 gallons. 2.5 Brix. Sweeter because we took out ice.

28 overnight. Cloudy all day. Up to 45.

30 overnight but dropped to 26 at dawn. Cloudy most of the day with a little sun late. Temperature up to 43 but it felt cold and the ground stayed cold. A little dripping from the trees but not enough to collect.

Tonight and tomorrow’s forecast is for similar weather. Waiting for mother nature now.

Started the burner at 11:00 AM. Filtering by 12:30 PM. Finished bottling by 2:15 PM. Back to the farmhouse by 2:45 after cleanup. One full milk can remains. Good progress the past three days. 49 ½ gallons bottled so far for the season.

30 at 3:30 AM but dropped to 27 at dawn. Lake effect snow covered the ground in white but melted by 11:00 AM. Cloudy until late afternoon. Temperature in high 30s but ground stayed cold.

Tree gauge -5 PSI so trees are still pulling up sap. Anticipating the warmer weather tomorrow and Tuesday will give us another run.

20 overnight. Cloudy and 33 today with light lake effect snow during the day. Did not wear boots into the woods for bottling because the ground was frozen, not muddy. But cold concrete penetrates through the shoe to cause cold feet. Wearing rubber bucket boots help keep feet warm.

Bottled. Started burners at 11:15. Filtering done by1:00. Bottled at 1:30. A slight delay waiting on help to arrive.

Broke the hydrometer. Knocked it off the filer press table. Have a spare but sill frustrating.

Cold again tonight. Warms for Monday so anticipating sap.

Back to the farmhouse by 3:30 PM.

35 overnight with rain staring at 4:00 AM. By 5:30 AM rain tuned to snow. Enough to turn everything white but no accumulation. Snow ended by 9:00 AM but stayed cloudy until 1:30 PM when the sun appeared. Temperature didn’t rise above 35. Tonight forecast for 15.

At 9:00 AM tree gauge had 0 PSI. By 1:00 PM it was -10 PSI indicating the tree is pulling up sap. After the cold spell next few days we should get another run.

Dumped a milk can at 9:00 AM into finishing pan. Started burners at 10:15 AM. Filtering by 11:30 AM. Done bottling by 1:15 PM. Back to farmhouse by 1:30 PM.