Category: 2026: Season 109 Page 2 of 5

16 ¼ hours. Into the woods by 5:15 AM. Back to the farmhouse by 9:30 PM. It’s been many years since we’ve had such a long day: that was before the R/O. We weren’t firing well. Too little wood and too far out of the firebox. Figured it out by 6:00 PM. Loaded the firebox with wood and pulled it closer to the front of the firebox. This gave sustained boils with firing every 20 minutes as opposed to firing every 7-10 minutes with weak boils. Burned a lot of wood with poor results.

Mid-30s overnight. Cloudy in the morning. Mostly sunny by late afternoon. The trees dripped. We had no bandwidth to collect. Focused on cooking. Miss the R/O, but have to focus on what we have instead of what could be.

We did finish three milk cans of syrup. Put the syrup into a 20 gallon stainless steel drum. This is a first for us.

The day cooking.

7:00 AM 22 ½”
8:00 AM 21 “
9:00 AM 19 ¼”
10:00 AM 18”
11:00 AM 16 ¾”
11:00 AM batch
12:00 PM 15 ½”
1:00 PM14 ¼”
2:00 PM 12 ½”
3:00 PM 11 1/8”
4:00 PM 9 ½”
5:00 PM 8 ½”
5:00m PM batch
6:00 PM 7”
7:00 PM 5 ½”
8:00 PM 3 ¾”
9:00 PM batch
9:05 PM 2”
9:20 PM done
9:30 PM farmhouse

Cook tomorrow again. Embrace the firing technique. Likely collect on Monday.

Mid-30s overnight. The trees dripped into the night. 50 and sunny during the day. Trees continued to run well.

Into the woods by Noon to prepare for collecting. Washed tanks. Opened the remaining trail. Then pulled the collecting tank over the trails to verify we can get through. Although with a load of sap it could get more challenging.

First day of Spring. Looks like this will be a busy sap week. Anticipating in 7-10 days we’ll be done.

Started collecting by 2:45 PM. Finished by 5:45 PM. 490 gallons.

A lot of cooking ahead.

Into the woods by 10:00 AM to open trails and dump buckets. Was much easier today to drive the trails with the H to pack down the snow. Temperature was warmer so the snow actually packed. The snow was loose and fluffy yesterday because it was colder. That made is harder to drive through. All the main trails are open. One more trail would be nice to open, but the snow is too deep yet. We’ll try tomorrow again.

Then dumped ice and sap from all the buckets. Any sap was a week old and degraded. Weather was warm last Friday and Saturday. Then we had the blizzard and cold weather that made ice blocks in the buckets. The buckets and covers come through the blizzard mostly intact: only a few covers off and only one bucket down completely. But Noon the ice melted enough that we could empty the bucket and ice block.

The trees were dripping. We are ready for fresh sap. Not sure if we collect tomorrow or Saturday.

30 overnight. Sunny this morning shifting to mostly sunny this afternoon. Temperature in the upper-30s.

Back to the farmhouse by 2:00 PM.

Lots of work ahead shoveling around the syrup building, opening the trails in the woods, and dumping sap from the buckets. Started shoveling and opening trails with the tractor.

Low-20s overnight. Cloudy and mid-30s by late afternoon.

Low teens overnight. Might have hit single digits. Sunny and mid-20s during the day. With the snow and cold it looks like a day in January.

3 ½ hours to plow the yard this morning. Because the hydraulics on the H are bad, it takes more time and effort to plow.

Drifts were over 4’ in front of the garage. And 3’ in the East driveway. The mailbox tipped over. The snowplow didn’t hit it, but the momentum of the snow ejecting from the plow knocked it over.

We didn’t plow in the woods yet. We have to open the road to the syrup building and drive the collecting trails through the woods to pack down the snow.

Blizzard continued overnight. Some reports of 22” of snow. It raged this morning. Winds gusts of 40-50 mph along with heavy snow. Three and four foot drifts in the yard. But the North wind blew away much of the snow from the West driveway. By Noon the blizzard slowly started to diminish and the sky brighten. By 3:15 PM the sun appeared although the wind continued. Mid-20s. Tonight in the single digits.

Checked the woods and syrup building by 8:00 AM. Moved the milk cans of syrup into the heated R/O room to prevent freezing since the temperature will been single digits, teens or low 20s for several days.

A month ago it was 55 and we started tapping. Extreme weather fluctuations are part of climate change.

About 6” of snow overnight. Then a lull. Snow returned around 1:00 PM and increased in intensity. Snowing hard now. And with wind is picking up. The blizzard part of the storm is here. Time is just before 4:00 PM. Expecting 18” of snow.

We did check the woods this morning to confirm the R/O wash cycle completed; it did. Reached 113 this cycle. Not sure why the temperature only reached 110 the other day.

April 13-15, 2018 we had Blizzard Evelyn. Its arrival delayed the return to Washington, DC.

Into the woods by 5:30 AM to cook. It was cold overnight: low to mid-20s. Forgot to drain the line from the storage tank to the R/O. It had slushy ice. The R/O feed pump would run, but the high pressure pump wouldn’t start until that ice was removed because there wasn’t enough sap flow to sustain the pump. It was 7:15 AM before the R/O was going.

The R/O was not preforming. The pH wash didn’t restore performance. We limped along until 11:00 AM then swapped from the FilmTec membrane to the CDL membrane. The spare membrane didn’t preform much better. Both the concentrate and permeate were under .5 gal/min. Likely closer to 0.2 gal/min. The gauge doesn’t have graduations for anything less than .5 gal/min.

We checked the permeate: no sugar in it. Approximately 3.5 Brix on the concentrate. If the flow was higher we could even tolerate the lower Brix. The R/O is rated at 125 gal/hr. Real world is 90 to 100 gal/hr. We were getting 25-30 gal/hr.

Gave up on the R/O by 1:00 PM to concentrate on cooking old style. Dividing attention between the R/O and firing diminishes effectiveness of both. This became a 14 ½ hour day. If the R/O performed to specifications, it should have been a six to seven hour day.

After three batches into the milk can, we returned to amber color as the sap from the warm days was cooked off.

Sunny and mid-30s by afternoon. Some tress dripped, but we have to abandon that sap. Didn’t have the resources to collect and with the forecast snowstorm, couldn’t cook it.

Since replacing the Grundfos feed pump with the Goulds feed pump three seasons ago, we’ve had performance problems with R/O. We suspect the Goulds pump is over-sized for a single 4” membrane and pushes more sap through then the re-circulation pump can handle. We’ll have down time this week because of the snowstorm and then cold weather with single digits at night, and plan to investigate how these pump specifications differ.

The day cooking.
7:15 AM R/O start
8:00 AM 2 3/4″
8:20 AM batch
9:00 AM 4 1/4″
10:00 AM 4 ¼”
10:15 AM batch
11:00 AM 4″
11:00 AM switch to CDL membrane
11:35 AM resume R/O
12:00 PM 4″
12:55 PM batch
1:05 PM stopped R/O
2:00 PM 3 3/4″
3:00 PM 1 1/4″
3:10 PM batch, amber color returned
4:00 PM 8″ raw sap
5:00 PM 6 ½”
5:35 PM batch
6:00 PM 4 1/2″
7:00 PM 2 1/2″
7:30 PM 2″
7:45 Pm done

Back to the farmhouse by 8:00 PM.

Blizzard warning in effect for tomorrow through Monday. 8”-18” forecast with winds 40-50 mph. We are on the trailing edge of the storm. 18”-24” expected 50 miles to the North in the center of the storm track.

Into the woods by Noon. Started collecting at 12:45 PM. 325 gallons. Solo. Pumping out the full tank delays us by 50 minutes because the transfer pump is slow. We work ahead emptying buckets and leaving the full collecting pails by the road to dump when we drive by.

Trees dripped overnight as we anticipated. But the run is done now. Don’t expect more sap until next week after the snow storm has passed.

Forecast still shows between 8”-18” of snow. Final amount depends on the storm track.

Back to the farmhouse by 5:00 PM.

Into the woods by 9:00 AM to check if the pH wash cycle finished. It did finish. Then swept the floors and other tidying up in the building.

Back to the woods by 10:45 AM to empty the buckets. About a pint in most buckets, but it was ice and we had to wait for it to melt before emptying. That sap was in the buckets for several warmer days so didn’t want to keep it. We are ready for fresh new sap.

Upper 20s overnight. Sunny and 40 during the day. Trees started dripping by Noon. Likely drip all night because temperature forecast for the mid-30s overnight. Hoping to collect tomorrow.

Ran the rinse cycle on the R/O this afternoon. The R/O needs a longer rinse cycle after a pH wash. Also washed the finishing pan so it’s ready.

Light snow forecast for tonight. No accumulation expected. But Saturday night through Monday heavy snow/blizzard is possible. 12”-18”. It’s still several days away. We’ve seen these storm forecasts before only to fizzle out with an inch or two. Monitoring the forecast.

Back to the farmhouse by 3:00 PM.