Into the woods at 6:00 AM to tap. Sunrise was 6:25 AM. 50 more taps out by 7:45 AM. Before going back the farmhouse, we noticed there five buckets with missed covers from yesterday’s tapping. When we placed the covers, we noticed the buckets were full. Must have run all night. It was down to 30 overnight. Not a hard freeze. Sunny and up to 45. The trees were dripping. We moved sap around from full buckets.
At Noon we started getting ready to collect. Washed the storage tanks and collecting tank. Everything ready by 3:00 PM when help. The original plan was to continue tapping, but switched to collecting first. Collected 170 gallons at 2 Brix. 50 of the taps were from the morning tapping session and they were half full. It was a good run.
After collecting, we still had time to put up 50 more taps. But we did break a drill bit. Hit something in the tree and bit stopped turning. The bit snapped. It’s been five or more years since we broke a bit. And that was because the bit was of poor quality. Broke on the first tap we tried to make with it. Went to the farmhouse to get a spare bit.
Back to the farmhouse by 5:15 PM.