Dumped ice to make room for sap. Trees ran more than we thought overnight on Feb 27 into Feb 28. Many buckets ¾ full while some were full. It was ice now because of the cold Feb 28 to Mar 2. We estimate it was 300 gallons of sap.
On the 27th the trees started running late afternoon and ran into the night while the temperature dropped. If we started collecting at 11:00 PM we could have collected liquid sap because the temperature dropped below freezing around Midnight. By morning, temperature was in the 20s. But it’s not feasible to collect at night: it’s dark and we don’t have help. So we got ice.
We expect sap this week. Big blocks if ice take many days to melt in the buckets. Leaving ice in the buckets meant no room for new sap. At 12:45 PM we headed into the woods to dump ice from buckets. There was some melt so we saved a pint to a quart of sap while dumping the remaining ice block. The remaining sap should be sweeter.
By 2:00 PM the sun came out. Trees started dripping. They will drip into the night again. Low 30s tonight won’t produce ice. Tomorrow should be favorable for sap again.