38 overnight.  Cloudy with snow showers all day.  Temperature up to 40 so the snow showers were unexpected.  Must have been colder at higher altitude.  No accumulation.

In the woods by 6:00 AM.  Needed extra time to assemble and prepare the R/O.  Got the evaporate pans washed out.  Filled the evaporator with sap and got the fire going by 7:00 AM.  Turned the focus to the R/O.  Connected all the hoses.    Inserted the membrane then ran 200 gallons of water through it to prepare it from siting idol during the off season.  Started concentrating at 10:30 AM.  Took the sap to 7° Brix (12:1).  R/O completed by 3:00 PM.  Done cooking and back to the farmhouse by 5:30 PM.

When starting from fresh sap it takes several hours to get going.  It was 1:15 PM before the first batch was ready.  But after that we took off batches about every hour.  Four batches into the milk can.     No sugar sand or nitre but the syrup was darker then expected for the beginning of the season.

Forecast is 25 overnight.  Connected the heating tape to the R/O water tank hose to protect it from freezing.  Tomorrow 40 and partly sunny.  Hoping for sap.