44 overnight.  Drizzle.  Continues to melt.  Water everywhere.  It was cloudy, misty, foggy, drizzly until 3:00 PM.  The sun came out.  Looked like we’d have good weather for collecting.

Into the woods by 9:00 to prepare for collecting.  Setup the tank pipes.  Wash the tanks.  Setup the pipes to the evaporator.

Started collecting at 3:00 PM.  Got a tank full by 4:00 PM.  We setup the new quick connect hose to the  collecting tank.  When we opened the value the pump primed from the flow of sap into it.  We were excited to see that.   But when we plugged in the pump, it didn’t start.  It was getting power, but was seized.  Disappointment.   The pump was stored in the house off season so it should have worked.  We reverted to the old pump.

As we went back out collecting, lite rain started.    Just as we were finishing we go a down pour.  But within 30 minutes the sun was out.

We collected 375 gallons at 2.5 Brix.  Tomorrow we start cooking.