Small run today.  Collected 125 gallons of sap.  Started at 5:30 PM.  Finished at 9:05 PM.  The only reason we collected is that the sap was liquid today.  Tomorrow and the next few days turn colder again and then we would have ice in the buckets.  Its a lot of work to collect solo and then starting late meant we would collect in the dark.   We waited until after 5:00 to start in order to get most of the run.  It was cloudy until about 1:00 PM.  Then the sun appeared and trees started dripping.  By 4:00 PM the clouds moved in again.  But it did get to 45 and there was melting this afternoon.

 

By 7:30 PM it was dark enough to turn on the headlamps we have.  Its nice to have the lamp right on your head so you can direct to where you need to see the spout.  The moon was bright for about 45 minutes too.  Then it got cloudy.

 

Tomorrow we will see about starting the evaporator.