Well, looks like winter is letting up from the negative temps and snow for a while. Got a good run in the forecast of high 30s during the day and 20s at night. I’m heading out to our lines this morning to start tapping maples!! I can smell the boiling sap already! Anyone else tapping this weekend - or have you tapped yet?
Good luck for this season. Not many will tap around here until the end of February. Some wait and miss lots of it.
The last couple years I felt like I tapped too late when setting first taps near the end of February. Got a good stretch this next week of perfect weather for a sap run. We’ll see if I made the right call or not. Had a red fox sunning himself and watching me for a bit. Not sure how long he was out when I was working in my front lot. Couldn’t snap a picture of him before he jumped back into his hole.
It will be awhile here. Usually it is mid to late March. However, I am getting the itch to prune some apple trees. Looking forward to that and keeping track of what folks are doing here with tapping trees.
Got most of the tapping done between yesterday and this morning. 132 taps in so far. 12 buckets along our driveway and the rest on lines. One short line of 3/16ths tubing with 8 more trees to get to tomorrow and then done. Sap flow was incredible today. I think the arch is getting fired up tomorrow evening.
Made the right call. Sap flow has been excellent. Couple late nights finishing and bottling but it’s all worth it. 150 gallons of sap through the arch so far.
The maple sugar farm where my wife works in customer service has called her up for woods duty. All hands on deck! The section they are tapping today as 9k taps. She loves getting out of the office for a couple days.
Nice. Nothing going on here for at least a week if the 10 day weather report is correct. Usually late Feb into March here.
I usually help out up in Western Mass. Just waiting for the landowner to say it’s time! We usually start end of Feb. since there is so much freeze up yet to go. We don’t have a way to keep the sap from freezing and we all live some distance from the sugarbush. It’s tough to deal with frozen buckets, tanks, pipes and the rest, but I can’t wait for the start. The end of sugar season means you the real beginning of spring.
I’ll get some better pictures today if I can thaw out the tanks and get boiling. Pretty basic setup. I use an old home built boiling arch and a couple homemade 2 x 3 boiling pans and a older Leader finishing pan. Waiting for the arrival of our new 2 x 6 divided pan from Smokey Lake Maple. Sugar shack isn’t done or usable yet so it’s all weather dependent outdoor boiling for now. We got to one hundred 1.7 ounce bottles filled the other night.
Freeze up is a pain for sure. Sap flow cut off once this cold hit a couple days ago but we still have a couple tanks about half full. Hoping to be able to draw some off today but I doubt it. Temps right around 32. Good luck in the coming weeks when you’re out there tapping and helping out in MA! I’ve seen a handful of other maple producers in our area have tapped. Few guys down in West Simsbury also had their taps in and tanks out.
It’s probably gonna be a few more weeks till I tap. Weather isn’t looking too promising. A few guys with tubing have started, but they traditionally start earlier than guys with bags/buckets. I visited this syrup operation last week in Colebrook, Ohio. Boiled 6k gallons in 3 hours, had around 67 gallons (sugar content around 1%). It’s crazy to fathom how efficient this operation is, just filling barrel after barrel. They use a semi tanker for sap storage.
