The calendar says its about three weeks early, but the weather pattern of freezing nights and sunny days is here now.\u00a0 Its been warm all winter.\u00a0 12\u201d to 15\u201d total of snow.\u00a0 Average snowfall is around 60\u201d.\u00a0 Rivers barely froze.\u00a0\u00a0 Unusual and troubling.\u00a0 We are very concerned about this maple syrup season.\u00a0 And we are concerned about future seasons if this pattern starts to re-occur.\u00a0\u00a0 Because of the warm winter sap has been moving in the trees for much of the winter.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Today was over cast and rainy with a few snow showers.\u00a0 High temperature of 37.\u00a0 But the previous week was sunny with freezing nights and days in the high 30s to low 40s. \u00a0 That is certainty maple weather no matter what the calendar says.<\/p>\n
So we started tapping on February 21.\u00a0 This is among the earliest dates we have ever tapped.\u00a0 We have to check the records but in past 20 years it has not been this early.\u00a0\u00a0 Neighboring producers tapped a few days ago.\u00a0 We had to clear our schedule before coming but would have liked to tap last week. <\/p>\n
The flight in from Washington, DC was uneventful.\u00a0 But there was little snow on the ground.\u00a0 Past years the snow covered ground looked pretty from the air plane.\u00a0\u00a0 Today it was just brown with a few patches of snow.\u00a0 Our woods is petty much snow free.\u00a0\u00a0 It looks like the end of the season.<\/p>\n
Got to the farmhouse by 2:15 PM.\u00a0 By 3:15 had 50 buckets washed.\u00a0 We washed all the spouts during the Christmas holiday so at least that was ready.\u00a0 Out to the woods with the tractor and buckets to begin tapping.\u00a0 By 5:15 PM we had 50 taps out.\u00a0 The sap is moving.\u00a0 This evening we washed about 125 more so we are ready for tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
As with any agricultural activity, you have to have faith because we have no control over the critical factors that determine production.\u00a0\u00a0 So we will see what this season brings.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
In the coming days we will tell about the activities and plans of the off-season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The calendar says its about three weeks early, but the weather pattern of freezing nights and sunny days is here now.\u00a0 Its been warm all winter.\u00a0 12\u201d to 15\u201d total of snow.\u00a0 Average snowfall is around 60\u201d.\u00a0 Rivers barely froze.\u00a0\u00a0 Unusual and troubling.\u00a0 We are very concerned about this maple syrup season.\u00a0 And we are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-season-95"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","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=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}