Today was cloudy. Got up to 40 or so. But the sap did not run. With rain forecast for the next few days we planned to pickup the sap there was so it would not spoil. Set out about 1:15 pm. A Wintery mix of rain/snow started falling. This was not expected this early. Fortunately it did not fall long or hard so we did not get wet collecting. There was not a lot of sap. Some buckets were completely dry already. We did get about 175 gallons. There may not be any more sap this season. Unless the weather turns favorable with a return to sunny days and freezing nights, which are not forecast, we may well be done.

We setup to pump the sap from the collecting tank to the storage tanks. Our pump struggled to start. It has had problems all season. We could actually see the electric motor burning up. And then it quit and would not start again. This pump was 25 to 30 years old so it gave us a good run. So we made a trip to Fleet Farm to purchase a new pump. We have a replacement pump now that is almost identical. It is rated at 1450 gallons/hour. Doing the math, it should empty our 200 gallon collecting tank in just under 10 minutes. The pump cost $110.