Sap is Flowing

Finally after 9 straight cold days, the temperature not reaching higher than 23 degrees and wind, the sap began flowing yesterday afternoon.

Harvey boiled around noon today. He made 40 gallons of A-Dark.

Sap is still running this evening.

Cold and Snowy

Once again we have come to a stand still.

12 degrees at night and a high of about 32 during the day. Too cold for the sap to run.

Making Room for Syrup

These barrels full of syrup weigh about 600 pounds.

Sap Ran Last Night, Cold this Morning

Harvey has 1 full tank of sap this morning.

Sap stopped running in the night.

Cold here this morning, 26 degrees.

Harvey will boil what he has in the sap tank sometime today.

Otherwise, we don't expect the sap to run today, too cold.

Great Day in the Sugarhouse

After boiling most of today we have caught up on our sap storage tanks and have approximately 300 gallons of syrup...1/3 of our crop.

Sap is still running this evening, but has started slowing down because it is getting colder.

It's official we have entered "Mud Season". We have lost a ton of snow this week and Route 58, the dirt road to our house, is really bad. It looks like log trucks have been on the road, but they haven't...huge, deep ruts with muddy water pools as wide as the road. You have no choice, but to hit the gas pedal and hope for the best. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through in one of the places, dragged bottom a little, but I made it.

Sap Ran All Night

We have 3 sap tanks full, running into the 4th tank.

Harvey made 120 gallons of A-Medium "just" yesterday.

Raining hard and windy this morning, 48 degrees.

Harvey and Ryan will be boiling today.

Finished for the Night

Harvey ran out of concentrate. Stopping for the night.

2 Sap tanks (2,000 gallons) full and sap is still running.

Beautiful day!

We are back in business!

Harvey said they fixed the arch this morning. It was a broken pipe from the oil tank.

They have been boiling most of the day and making A-Medium.

They just shut down to let the RO catch up and to switch out the front pans.

The sap is running really good and he still has tanks full of sap.

It is sunny and 50 degrees.

Lots of Sap

Sap ran all night, still running this morning, and we have 3 full storage tanks of sap. Harvey is getting the 4th storage ready to store sap. We haven't used this 4th tank in a long time. Great sap run!

Repair man is suppose to come between 9 and 9:30 a.m. this morning.

Let's cross our fingers he gets here on time!

Arch is Broken

Harvey & Ryan started boiling this afternoon and the arch broke down. No boiling tonight. Waiting for the repair man, who is suppose to be coming in the morning.

In the mean time, we have 2 tanks full of sap and the sap is still running tonight.

Harvey also had trouble with the "releaser" last night. It pumps sap up into the storage tanks. So far the "releaser" is working today.

Cold Weather

The last 2 days have been too cold for the sap to run. It started running just a little bit last night.

We have some real nasty weather coming for the next couple of days...snow, rain, sleet...the maple trees love this kind of weather, especially if it warms up a little bit.

We might be boiling tonight.

Boiling Today

Sap ran all night and still running. Harvey and Ryan are getting to ready to start boiling.

It was snowing hard this morning, but now it looks like a mixture of snow/rain.

We bought a new RO and it was installed this week.

Boiled yesterday, last night, and again this afternoon.

I canned this afternoon and of course my dogs were on hand to help!

We were making A-Medium today.

Lots of snow & a broken RO!

Sunday, March 6, we received at least 30" of snow, needless to say we are buried. This is a picture of my car!

The RO (Reverse Osmosis) machine quit running yesterday. The repair man could not get to us on Sunday because the road to Montgomery was closed due to flooding. He couldn't get to us on Monday, because we had too much snow.

Harvey ended up having to boil the 1,000 gallons of sap yesterday without the RO which takes so much longer to make syrup.

Today, Harvey traded in the old RO and bought a new one. We expect the new RO within a couple of days. Looks like we will be getting some more sugaring weather on Thursday and Friday and we are going to need this RO. Temperatures in the high 30's, low 40's, rain, sleet and snow.

Tomorrow we have a crew headed into the woods to dig main lines and sap lines out of the snow. Having lines buried certainly doesn't help the sap get to the sugarhouse!

First Sap Run & First Boil, March 6 2011

We have a wonderful first sap run! We have 1 1/2 storage tanks full of sap and it's running really good.

It is pouring rain, 45 degrees, and water over Route 118 in Montgomery Village.

Our driveway is a sheet of ice.

We should be boiling some time today. It's always scary to start the arch for the first time after it has been sitting for a year. We cross our fingers and hope everything works.