550 gallons in one 14 hour day.  That’s a first.  Couldn’t have done it without the R/O.  It would have been three days cooking.    All the tanks are empty.

Into the woods by 6:15 AM.   Wanted to start early and also had a meeting at 7:00 AM that took an hour away.  Prepared everything until about 6:50.  Returned at 8:00 to light the fire and start the R/O.  Started drawing from the concentrate tank at 9:30 AM.  By 11:00 AM took off the first batch.  And every hour for the next seven hours took off a batch.  We now have three milk cans of syrup that need finishing and bottling.

At 1:30 PM we could have stopped the R/O and cooked the concentrate we had.  Would have finished between 4:00 PM and 5:00 PM.  But decided to push on with the R/O to finish the last 200 gallons.   Concentrate doesn’t keep well so when sap is processed through the R/O it should be cooked.  We had good boils and it made sense to push on and empty the tanks.  Slacked off firing the last  1 ½ hours.  Should have pushed harder and finished earlier.  Back to the house by 8:30 PM.

Very windy all day.  It froze overnight.  We saw ice on the puddles.  Sunny and 30s today but wind made if feel much colder.  Trees dripped a little but not enough to collect.  We also needed a break after three days of almost 1000 gallons of sap,

Now it turns colder again.  Snow possible.  No sap expected for a few days.