MapleAcres

Out to the woods by 9:00 AM.  Started the day by breaking more trails to the west of the building for the tractor.  Wow, that was a lot of work.   It was warmer and rainy today: upper 30’s with rain sprinkles.  So the snow was wet and heavier.  We could not drive the tractor through it to break a trail because the snow accumulated under the wheels.  Had to use the bucket to take a scoop of snow, back out because there was no place to dump it on this trail, then go back up the trail for the next scoop.   There was still enough wet snow under the wheels to make steering difficult.   The tractor does not have power steering so you are constantly wrestling with the steering wheel to get it to go where you want, and not where the snow takes it.

Got 25 taps out before lunch.  During lunch changed into dry T-shirts.   They were not wet from the rain, but rather from sweating.   A damp or wet T-shirt or socks or anything when working outside in the cold makes it very uncomfortable.  

This afternoon we put our 100 more taps.  Actually 99.  One bucket fell off the tractor and got run over.  

The 5 to 7 day weather forecast  looks like cold weather yet.  Low 30’s.   Tuesday we may get a snow storm.

The day got off to a slow start.  Went to start the tractor.  Nothing happens.  The battery is dead.  The charger was on the battery two days ago so its not even holding a charge.   We took the battery out and went to Fleet Farm to get a new battery.  That was $45.00 which is a pretty good price.  With the new battery the tractor started fine.  But the tractor runs rough.  It takes  15 to 20 minutes to warm up to run properly.

Made it into the woods about 1:00 PM to break some trails with the tractor.  That was slow going.  There is not a lot of snow in the woods.  10” maybe.  But the tractor chugs along through it.  It rocks from side to side as the wheels spin down for traction.  And with the narrow front wheels it tends to snow plow rather then roll through.

The tapper, which sat unused for a year, started on five pulls.  Its such a hardy device.   Finally we got 50 buckets and headed out. 

The sap is moving in the trees.  Sap started flowing when we tapped.  We got the 50 taps out.  One way or another we were going to get some taps out today.

The weather during the next few days is a wintery mix.  Snow changing to rain changing back to snow.  Sunday looks good.  But next week a major snow storm may move in.  We’ll see.

Back to WI to get the maple season under way.  Arrived in Green Bay about 12:40 PM.  From the plane we see all the snow covered fields and forests.  It looks pretty.  But we know changes are coming.  It was sunny, bright and cold today.   However the suns rays are getting stronger and starting to warm.  The weather will break soon and we want to be ready for early sap runs.  This afternoon we brought all the washed buckets up from the basement.  Tomorrow we plan to start tapping.

The 2011 Maple Syrup Season will start soon.  We plan to tap the week of 1 March.  Our supplies are ordered and at hand.  The buckets are washed.  We had a proper winter with snow and cold.  Even the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl.   Now we wait for the weather to break from the cold grip of winter to the changeable weather pattern of March that maple trees need to give us their sap.

Patience.  Without patience the season would have been a bust.  The weather started out very favorable the first days of March.  The last week of February had the same weather pattern and we would have benefited from tapping about five to seven days earlier.  But March 9th the weather changed: first foggy and warm with no freezing night, then sunny and warm with no freezing nights.   It wasn’t until March 20th that the weather pattern changed back to freezing nights.  That saved us. 

We knew this was an El Nino year which creates warmer winters in the Mid-West.  Still, we wonder what the longer term impacts of climate change will have on maple syrup production.  We need that alternating freezing/thawing cycle for sap runs. 

57 ½ gallons is 96% of an average season.  So pretty much an average season.  From our contacts with other producers we were fortunate.  Producers in Vermont are reporting 1/3 of a crop.   Even other Wisc producers are reporting poor crops.  All of Wisc had the warm weather pattern.

We collected 2440 gallons of sap.  We made 57 ½ gallons of syrup.  That works out to 42 to 1 for the ratio of sap to syrup.  And an average of 2.02 Brix for the sap.

We started tapping March 2 and were completed by March 3.  We put out 423 taps.  We pulled taps on March 30th so we had  29 days of potential sap.

There is a question about next season.  Our hope is to do some upgrades: replace the concrete floor in the syrup building.  Maybe get a new evaporator.   But some events, that we don’t control,  need to work themselves out.  We will make syrup next year, but maybe not the way we hope.

The annual meeting of the North American Maple Syrup Council is in London, Ontario in October.    We plan to attend again.  And we will be back here in late February or early March 2011.

At 4:10 PM the season was officially done.   That’s when we walked into the house after finishing all the cleanup.    All the equipment is cleaned and stored for next year.  Today was mostly cleaning a lot of small stuff:  disconnecting the LP gas tanks and bringing them into the building,  sealing the gas burners, cleaning the storage tanks, etc.

We also counted the spouts that we pulled.  It turns out we had 423 taps out.  We also seem to have lost four of our stainless steal spouts.  We should have had 400 of them, but we only counted 396.

We will write up our season summary and comments in a day or two.  Tomorrow we fly back to Washington, DC.

The biggest cleanup task is done.   Cleaning the evaporator, especially the bottom that gets exposed to the fire, is the hardest and dirtiest job.  Scrapped off a layer of burnt on soot first with a  putty knife.  Then sprayed with oven cleaner.  Finally used the metal scrub pads on the pan.  The bottom of the evaporator looks like new.   Its nice and shiny now.  Cleaner then even past years.  Turned out that it wasn’t as hard to clean as past years either. Using the putty knife first to scrap off a layer of soot made the difference.   But its still is a dirty job.  The scrapped off black soot blows around.  The wash water gets black with the soot.  And the cleaning chemicals are hard on the hands.

Also swept and washed the floor.   Only a few items remain for cleanup tomorrow.

57 ½ gallons (230 quarts) of finished maple syrup.  Started the finishing pan by 9:30 AM.  But 1:00 PM we had syrup and bottled 16 quarts giving us the final tally of 230 quarts of maple syrup for 2010.

Only clean up is left.  The inside of the evaporator pans are done.  We have to clean the bottom yet.  That’s a much harder job because of all he burnt on soot from the burning wood.  Oven cleaner, a stainless steal polishing pad and muscle power usually does the job.  The storage tanks need to be washed out, floors washed, spouts washed and few other odds and ends to clean up.