Day four in the Sugar Bush

Well we hung maybe the last bucket this morning about 10:15. 2304 buckets, if our count is correct. The snow crusted over hard enough overnight to hold the guys up without sinking in this morning. It was a tough year tapping as the snow shoes wern't helping much in the deep snow, before today. "figures".
I said maybe because the 2015 season could be a very short one, as we are 2 weeks late and it could get warm shortly,and stay that way. and we may have to tap more trees to meet our production objective, of 600 gal. of syrup. We will be watching the weather patterns very closely.
After finishing tapping, we went back to the saphouse and put up the stacks on the two evaporators, My uncle thinks we should take them down every year. The end of this season, he is getting overuled, and we will just cap them.
We also washed down the storage tanks, set the pans on our two Grimm arches. The small one is a 5x20' and the other is a 5x24' More details on them as the season progresses. We have a leak in one of the three storage tanks. We have had really had good luck with that "Super Seal" stuff that is advertised on TV.
The pics. are of putting up the smoke stacks, washing down the storage tanks. We have 2600gals. of storage.
We pulled out the two gathering trailers today and filled one with water to wash everything down.
i brought the other one down to my house to pressure wash it out and repair a leaky tire. (probably just squirt some fix-a-flat in it as it is a slow leak, The trailer chassis are old 1950s Case manure spreader frames.
Last winter I put both of them in my shop and did some needed repairs, added som steps to the sides that were snowshoe acessable and repainted them. One to match my Case 440, and the other to match the Case 990 up on the farm.
It looks like maybe Monday we will be gathering sap. The buckets we put up on Tues. only have a couple qts. in them.
Loren, the Acg.

Yous sure have a nice set up.

We didn't even get the cooker/evaporator down yet. Might do that this weekend. Have I'd guess around 50 trees tapped for a week already. We'd maybe do more, but need buckets and spouts.

So far have maybe half a milk can full(5 gal of sap). For that much it don't pay to start with. Maybe in a few weeks it will get better. If not what we get will get cooked down, if not sour by the time we get enough to bother lighting the fire. Then it will be done again for the year.

We cooked are first sap today had only 4 gallons cooked down to a little more than a1/2 pint . we will have it on our pancakes in the morning I don't care for it all that much. Its not running good in our woods.

Seeing the pictures of the whole process is really great. Cant wait to see more. So keepem coming.

I also like the pics. Can't wait to see the pics of the cooking down of the sap.

How do you sell the product, or maybe you just eat a lot of pancakes. Stan

Got the last taps in late yesterday afternoon. It should warm up enough this afternoon to clean up inside the sugarhouse without turning the whole floor into a skating rink.

It may run a little today, thaw out the tubing and let me run the vacuum pump long enough to warm it up and change the oil.

Supposed to go up to 40 degrees Monday. Sap Should run, but I have an appointment with the eye surgeon in the morning, won't be back until after noon. I will be playing catch up the rest of the day, but it looks like the rest of the week will be too cold to run. If that is the case, I will probably try to work on some wood for next year, and turn my nephew loose to tile the bathroom in my sister's house, something he has promised to do for the last two years.

We sell and ship via USPS flat rate boxes, and we have an Amish family that runs a farmers market and we deliver 300+ gals. per year to them. We also have a family member living in Conn. who sells a lot to their friends. He makes a couple of "syrup runs" up here each year.
Loren

Harold, The weather forcast sounds about the same here for next week.
Loren

I set our 40 taps on Monday, today is the first boil. I got 22 gallons or so yesterday and looks like I may get another 15-20 by the end of today since it was so warm the sap ran slowly all night. We try to make 10 gallons of syrup per year on a 2x4 evaporator so a much smaller deal than you're working with. I have been enjoying seeing how you do it.
Zach

The trees I tapped yesterday did drip a bit through the night. At least the snow is settling. Back at it shortly.

interesting to watch this process

Great to see these pictures, I might have to eat breakfast again! Otherwise just having a rainy morning down south here near Harpers Ferry WV.

Don, It's pretty nasty here. 32F and freezing drizzle and Fogy.
Loren

Well, today looks like a bust for cleaning,31 degrees at 12:15. We cleaned out the old ashes under the evaporator, then hauled in the first load of wood. Nephew walked the woods again, found a few un-tapped drops. Really won't be sure of everything until I can get vacuum on it.

I may quit early this afternoon, not much to do until it warms up.