MapleAcres

160 gallons at 3 Brix. The run from yesterday continued all night. 34 overnight with rain. Cloudy with showers today. High of 42. It’s satisfying to find full buckets. Not all the buckets, but enough to feel good about. Trees that hadn’t dripped seem to be waking up. There were still big chunks of ice from the cold days of the past week. Dumping the ice brought the Brix up to 3.

Checked the buckets at Noon to confirm we could collect. Then back at 2:30 PM to wash tanks. Started collecting by 2:50 PM. Solo. Done by 5:00 PM. We can empty 100 buckets an hour working solo.

The buckets had the nice ping of drip, drip, drip that we haven’t heard before today during this season.

Snow forecast for tonight. 2-4 inches of wet snow. We’ll cook in the morning.

18 overnight. Started sunny. By 9:00 AM it was 35. Turned cloudy and up to 38. Sap tried to run. Ice from the spouts. Without the sun it didn’t warm enough to melt. Season keeps dragging on.

18 overnight. Sunny and up to 30 today. The sun helped warm the trees. A few spouts wet. Pressure a rousing 2 PSI. Forecast for tonight is 20s again.

17 overnight. Sunny and 27 today but the wind made it colder. Cold tonight again. And cold tomorrow. Rain/snow Tuesday through Thursday.

Into the woods by 8:30 AM to prepare for finishing and bottling. Brought the milk can of syrup to the farmhouse last night so it wouldn’t freeze. Brought over water and the pans and all equipment needed for bottling. First bottling of the season so our equipment wasn’t in the building yet. Syrup on by 9:30 AM. Syrup was closer to finished then anticipated. By 10:00 AM we were over density and had to cut back with icy sap from the evaporator. Filtering by 10:30 AM. Bottling by 11:00 AM.

We had a special order for a wedding of 192 50 ml maple leaf bottles. They take a long time to do because its a lot of handling. Bottles fill quickly so you have to watch carefully and then move on to the next bottle. Takes 20 seconds per bottle. Took 1 ½ hours for all 192 bottles. 192 bottles @50 ml is 2.1 gallons of syrup.

Tired to regulate the temperature between 190 and 200. Our temperature checks indicated we were successful, but by the end we had cloudy syrup. Syrup looked good in the 50 ml bottles but the larger 250 ml and quart bottles weren’t to our standard so we put back into the milk can to finish and filter in the next batch.

After clean up, back to the farmhouse by 1:30 PM.

We had a dusting of snow overnight. Enough to make the ground white, but no accumulation. 28 overnight. Cloudy and 33 today. Down to the teens tonight.

Prepared for bottling tomorrow. Washed finishing and bottling pans. And let the propane gas flow into the lines. That can take an hour.

Brought the milk can of syrup to the farmhouse. If the temperature drops into the teens, we don’t want it to freeze.

At the beginning of March, 40 degrees feels warm. But the end of March, 40 degrees feels cold. 35 overnight. 28 was forecast. Day started sunny, then turned cloudy. Temperature up to 42.

Freezing night are forecast to return. We’ll see what mother nature gives us.

35 overnight. Cloudy with some rain today. Up to 40. Forecast turns a little colder the next few days. We’ll see what happens.

Based the sap we collected so far, we have 20% of a crop. With 200 taps we expect 35-40 gallons of syrup. After finishing and bottling we project 7.5 gallons which is 20% of a crop.

Had a video meeting with other producers from across the maple belt. Most report a down season with some similar to us. In northern MN and MI they haven’t started yet. Same in northern ON. Higher elevations in NY are still going. No word from VT, NH, ME or QB.

37 and rain overnight. Rain and 42 today. No woods activity.

Exchanged email with our equipment dealer in central Wisconsin. He also reports a poor season so far. Southern part of the state is done. Northern part of the state hasn’t had any runs yet. In central Wisconsin they had one run. Tomorrow is a call with producers from all across the US and Canada. Curious to find out how their season is going.

Into the woods at 4:45 AM to cook. Two batches into the milk can. Done by 9:30 AM.

Noticed the bottom row of wood in the woodshed is still frozen to the ground. The frost is still in the ground. Maybe when it comes out we get sap runs. But this is an odd season. Only trivial amounts of sap on what should have been good sap days based on the weather. Taps out three weeks now.

37 overnight. Cloudy with some rain today. Rain forecast overnight.

35 overnight. Cloudy, with some rain, most of the day with temperature up to 55. That’s not sap weather.

Getting reports that other local syrup producers are experiencing the same conditions. Its good to know its not just us, but leaves us wondering what’s happening.

Into the woods at 3:00 PM to collect. Picked up what was there. 75 gallons.

Forecast for the next few days is rain and cooler.