195 taps out. The goal was 200 but the battery on the drill was getting weak and we didn\u2019t want to have a bit stuck in a tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sunny and 42 today. Yesterday the temperature was 50. Last week we had highs in the Teens and lows of 0 so this is a quick change in the weather pattern, but the pattern is forecast to stay favorable for sap so this is go time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We put out the pressure gauge and one tap on Sunday, but no activity. On Monday when it warmed to 50 the pressure gauge recorded 12 PSI and the tap started to drip which signals it\u2019s time to tap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Into the woods by 6:30 AM. Discovered the Tanaka tapper wasn\u2019t running well when we started it. It was serviced before the season with new spark plug, clean filters and greased bearings. But it wouldn\u2019t rev up to full power and would sputter and stop when the choke was off. We acquired the Tanaka in 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fortunately we had a 20V electric drill. The drill wasn\u2019t acquired for tapping, although electric drills are widely used in the maple syrup industry. We switched to the electric drill and discovered it works well. It weights less so it\u2019s easier to carry around and allows us to tap in a wider band on the trees. Adjusted the torque settings a few times to find a setting where the bit wouldn\u2019t get stuck in the tree. We don\u2019t have a spare battery so we have to monitor the battery. We adjust our workflow to allow time to charge the battery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tomorrow is cloudy but 40\u2019s again. We plan to finish tapping. The trees aren\u2019t running strong because the frost is deep. That should give us time to set up equipment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
195 taps out. The goal was 200 but the battery on the drill was getting weak and we didn\u2019t want to have a bit stuck in a tree. Sunny and 42 today. Yesterday the temperature was 50. Last week we had highs in the Teens and lows of 0 so this is a quick change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-season-108"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2022,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021\/revisions\/2022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}