MapleAcres

White frost this morning.  Must have been down the 29 or 30.  Saw the sunrise this morning.  By 10:00 AM it got cloudy again.  Checked the trees.  Buckets had enough to collect.  Headed out by 2:30 PM.  Done by 5:15 PM.  310 gallons, but also low sugar.  1.5 °Bx.  Thankful for the R/O.

Snow forecast overnight 1”-2” of wet heavy snow.   Changes to a wintery mix and finally rain.

Saw the sun this morning.  Afternoon turned cloudy again.  About 35 overnight.  40 during the day.  Tonight may freeze.  We’ll see if that brings another run of sap.  Either way this season is coming to the end.

Bottled today again.  18 quarts and 14 pints.  Cleaning the burners helped.  Took 2 hours on the fire to finish instead of over 3 hours.

Snow and a wintery mix is forecast Thursday evening.

The weather patten has changed.  We’re getting a narrow temperature range:  38 for high, 34 lows.  Without freezing nights the season is ending.   Tuesday night is forecast to freeze.  We’ll see what happens after that.

Bottled 24 quarts and 15 pints.  Took 3 hours on the finishing pan, too long.  It should take around 2 hours.  We investigated and found out the propane tank was almost empty. We purchased a tank at the beginning of the season so we had gas on hand.  Changed tanks so tomorrow’s finishing and bottling should go faster.  Still 1 milk can full and another started.

Rain today.  In the woods by 7:30 AM.  R/O, cook, bottle.  Done cooking by 1:30 PM.  Three batches into milk can.    Timed the syrup on the finishing pan to reach density after we completed cooking.  It was ready by 2:30 PM.  Filtered.  Bottled.  Clean-up.  Back to the farmhouse by 4:00 PM.   There are still 2 ½ milk cans to bottle.

The tinkling drip…drip…drip… today was from rain on the covers of the buckets.

Cloudy and 38 today.  Drizzle around 4:00 PM.  Cold wind from the north.

Into the woods by 7:00 AM to cook yesterday’s sap.  R/O started at 8:15 AM and finished processing 415 gallons by 1:30 PM.  Five batches into the milk can.  Back at the farmhouse by 5:00 PM.

Put a can of syrup into the finishing pan at 10:45 AM.  It was ready for bottling by 1:15 PM.  24 quarts and 12 pints.

The trees dripped overnight.  About a quart in pails.  The question was when to collect.  With rain and warmer weather we didn’t want to leave sap in the buckets.  Tomorrow, Sunday, its forecast to rain harder so we set out collecting at 3:00 PM.  Came back with 170 gallons.  Tested the sugar content:  1.25 °Bx.  Quite low.  Without the R/O that’s not feasible to cook.  Its 69:1.    We’ll run it through the R/O tomorrow and should end up with about 2 ½ gallons of finished syrup.  With such low Brix we are close to the end of the season.

Next freezing nights are forecast for Tuesday.  We’ll see what that gives us.

35 overnight.  44 and cloudy today.  Did melt.  The trees responded and started dripping.  Likely started  late yesterday and into the night because it did warm in the afternoon yesterday.

Into the woods at Noon to put a can of syrup on the finishing pan.  Checked buckets and found ½ full in quite a few.  Changed plans.  Postponed bottling and started collecting at 2:45 PM.  Back in the farmhouse by 5:15 PM.  415 gallons.  It started to rain about 4:00 PM.  Fortunately we finished collecting before the heavy rain started.  Now through Sunday rain is forecast.

22 overnight.  Cloudy and windy all day.  The thermometer said 40 but it felt much colder.  The ground didn’t really thaw.    Tonight and tomorrow rain is forecast.

Started the finishing pan by 9:30 AM.  Dumped in one milk can.  By 1:30 we finished.  31 quarts and 7 pints.

18 at 5:00 AM.  Everything frozen.  Ice on the evaporator.  Thankful we collected yesterday because today it would be ice in the buckets.  The valve on the tank was frozen.  Needed the heat gun to thaw.  Light snow flurries several times during the day.  Cloudy until 2:00 PM then the sun made an appearance and turned partly cloudy.

Into woods by 7:30 AM.  Done cooking by 2:30 PM.  Five batches in the milk can.  Back to the farmhouse by 3:15 PM.

We are entering a rainy pattern Friday, Saturday and Sunday.    We need 775 more gallons of sap to hit 75 gallons of syrup for the season.

3 ½ milk cans of syrup.  Tomorrow we will bottle.

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.

34 at 5:30 AM.  Maybe 30 overnight for a short period because there was some ice on the puddles.  We were hoping for colder temperatures.  Warmed to 52.  Partly cloudy but the sun did make an appearance between 10:00 AM and 1:30 PM.

Into the woods by 8:45 AM.  R/O started at 10:00 AM and finished by 12:20 PM.  200 gallons in 140 minutes means 1.4 gallons/minute.  84 gallons/hour.  The R/O is rated at 125 gallons/hour.  Have to keep working on the controls to get the gallons/hour higher.  Sap out at just over 5 °Bx.  Finished cooking by 2:30 PM.  3 batches in the milk can.  Back at the farmhouse by 3:15 PM.  Actual cooking time was 5 hours.

Checked buckets at 1:30 PM.  Buckets had 1-2 quarts.  We plan to collect tomorrow.

Tonight also around 30.  Little cooler tomorrow.