We collected 300 gallons of sap today.  It was cold again last night: down to 17.  That freezes everything hard.  The buckets had ice in them.    By 10:30 AM  it was above freezing.    We knew we would collect but had to wait for the sun’s rays to do their magic to  melt a lot of the ice in the buckets.

While waiting to collect we washed out the collecting tank, storage tanks and evaporator.  That meant a water run with the tractor and milk cans.  After washing we had to connect the pipes from the storage tank to the evaporator.  

We also enlarged the opening on the collecting tank by cutting off a 1 ¼” lip on the top.  That added 2 ½ “ to the diameter making it much easier to dump the collecting pails in the tank.

By 3:00 PM we were ready to collect and set out.  By 5:00 PM we were done and had 300 gallons of sap.  Tomorrow we will fire up the evaporator.