Froze harder overnight; thicker ice on the puddles this morning.  Day started sunny.  Was warming nicely until 9:00 AM when the wind came up from the north.  Felt cold.   Trees started dripping but we were hoping for more.

Went out collecting at 3:00 PM.  Picked up 315 gallons.  No Brix reading yet.  We timed this collection well.  Yesterday would have been a lot of walking from tree to tree for little sap.  And tonight any sap in the buckets turns to ice.  We now have empty buckets. Turned colder while collecting.  A few snow flurries. Tomorrow we’ll cook.

Tonight gets cold, in the teens. Tomorrow mid 30s.   Put tank heaters in the tanks to keep the sap from freezing.

While pumping out the first tank of 225 gallons we noticed pump didn’t sound right and wasn’t moving sap as fast as expected.  It was getting air from somewhere.  Tightened the hose fittings on the pump several times.  Didn’t help.  Finally took washers off another garden hose to replace the washers.  One washer was worn out.  On the other connection a washer was doubled up.   The result was we didn’t get tight seals on the pump.     Because of bad washers on the pump hose we spend 45 minutes emptying the tank.  Should have taken about 15 minutes.