Cold & Windy

18 degrees Friday morning, beautiful sunny day, but a high of 37 degrees and a very cold north wind. Sap started running later in the day, but not enough to boil.

Harvey ventured to St. Albans yesterday to the Maple Festival and ate his way through the maple suppliers businesses. The suppliers always serve, free hot dogs, hamburgers, chili, donuts, cookies and yes, he ate everything.

This morning, 25 degrees, cloudy and rainy. It froze last night, so we will probably boil later today.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Harvey is getting ready to boil. I don't understand how the sap keeps running, it is so cold. The thermometer says 40, but it feels like 25 with the wind.

Apparently our moose visitor wanted to know where all those lines in the woods led to. Harvey found moose tracks this morning coming down out of the woods to within just a couple of hundred feet from the sugarhouse.

Tess loves to carry things in her mouth when we are on our walks. Today she found a huge piece of slab wood that she carried all the way home.

The pond still has ice and my chair is becoming a little more visible.

Grade C Today

Harvey made 33 gallons of Grade C today.

Maybe our season's end is near.

Signs of Spring

Sunny, warm day today brought signs of spring. Rhubarb emerging from my garden beds with snow in the background, a wooly catepillar, and my lounge chair beginning to show arms.

Harvey boiled late this afternoon, Grade B, working on the 23rd barrel.

Rain Storm

We had pouring rain, thunderstorms and lightening this morning. Rivers are high every where and over the banks in some places. High of 60 degrees today.

We lost a ton of snow today, but we still can't see the grass on our front lawn.

Harvey and Ryan boiled today. 1 barrel of Grade B

Visitor in the Sugarwoods

Harvey walked the sap lines this morning, found moose tracks and this bunch of moose hair attached to one of our main lines.

Harvey has boiled every day since Thursday. We have approximately 22 barrels = 850 gallons. Last year we made 900 gallons for the season.

It was 60 degrees today and has now started raining.

Harvey boiled late this afternoon.

He made 1 barrel of A-Medium = 40 gallons.

Ozzy on the ice of the pond.

Harvey made 60 gallons of Fancy this afternoon.

We are at 16 barrels or 650 gallons.

We have about 2/3 of a crop as of today.

Snow, rain, snow, rain, cold and raw all day.

Sap is still running tonight, but it's beginning to clear off and should freeze tonight.

No Sap Yesterday

The sap didn't run yesterday. Very windy and cold with a snow storm in the morning and rain by afternoon.

The sap did start running by evening and ran all night. We will be boiling today.

42 degrees, raining and very dense fog this morning.

Fancy Syrup

Harvey and Ryan made Fancy grade last night. Harvey said it was very, very light.

He made approximately 60 gallons.

Snow, changing over to rain, 42 degrees for today.

Boiling Tonight

Our tanks are full of sap and the arch has started.

Harvey and Ryan are boiling tonight.

This is a picture of Harvey cleaning one of our sugaring pans.

April 3, 2010 was our last day boiling and 80 degrees. I could sit in my chair by the pond in my bathing suit.

April 3, 2011, we are buried in snow 30 degrees with an extremely cold north wind blowing.

The picture of the chair is buried this April 3rd and I am dressed for the Arctic.

A-Dark to Fancy

Harvey made 80 gallons of syrup yesterday.

The grades went from A-Dark to Fancy. This is the first time we have hit fancy this season.

Today should be another boil day...26 last night, sunny and in the 40's today.

Sap is Running

Sap ran until 1 a.m. Friday morning. Harvey boiled Friday and made 60 gallons of A-Dark.

Sap running good today, Saturday, April 2 and wouldn't you know we had troubles with the vacuum pump. Ron Goff a local electrician was called to help out.

I decided to look back through my blog for April 2010 (last year) to see how much snow we had. We didn't have any and April 3, 2010 was our last day boiling for the 2010 season. So I went out and took pictures of what we look like this year.

Take a look at April 2010 and 2009 located on the left hand side of the blog. No wonder we are sick of winter!

The second to last picture is my garden. If you look at April 2009, you will see that on April 14, 2009, I had daffodils coming up!

Take a look at my chairs that I sit it at the pond!

Double click any picture to increase the size.

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.

This is a picture of our new taps that we are using this year, they are disposable.

They are suppose to be much more sterile to use.

The taps that are used over and over every year tend to harbor bacteria.

Harvey, Ryan and the "tapping crew" started tapping again on Wednesday and finished this morning.

It's a good thing they finished, because it is beginning to snow very hard.

Now Harvey & Ryan will begin working in the sugarhouse getting everything in order to begin boiling. I have a half gallon of syrup left in my fridge and that is it...we have never been this close to running out ourselves!

Tapping Update

The crew tapped almost 900 taps today.

The weather does not look so nice tomorrow.

First Day of Tapping 2011

Harvey, Ryan and a crew of 3 other people are headed to the woods to begin tapping today.

45 degrees this morning and rain is predicted.

This is a picture I took last weekend. Our sap lines are usually about 4 feet off the ground, but not this year. It is really hard going in the woods. The men have been digging out sap lines with a shovel for a couple of weeks.

The top picture is of "sap" lines. These lines go from tree to tree.

The bottom picture is one of our "main" lines. The sap lines feed into the main line. The main line carries the sap to the sugarhouse.

If you click on any pictures posted, it will enlarge the pictures for you.

Lots of snow!

New Sugaring Season Begins Soon!

Welcome to a new sugaring year!

Harvey & Ryan have been working in the sugarwoods fixing tubing the last couple of weeks.

Today I helped Harvey work on the lines.

We usually start tapping the last week of February.

We will have 3,000 taps this year.

Mother's Day and Mother Nature surprised us with a big snow storm. This is a short video that I took this morning.

We started pulling taps this week. We still have one more day to finish. We might have to put our snowshoes back on in May to finish sugaring!