Pics from the sugar bush today

[Adirondack case guy]

Today was the first day that there was sap to gather after the big storm.
Tough going in the bush. Had to put the 4wd tractors on the gathering tanks and every one using snow shoes to gather.
I went up late in the afternoon so no pics. of the gathering crew. We're only supposed to get up to 21F tomorrow and thus a few more days until temps allow the sap to run again. estimated production when they shut down after boiling all of todays sap, tonight/tomorrow morning will be about 385 gal of syrup, for the season thus far.
The last two pics are of the farm road from the farm to the sap house.
Loren

 

[TimV]

Jolly fun the way we had two (and counting!) "mud seasons" this year, isn't it? Haven't seen much activity around here yet after the storm, and with the next few days getting cold again we probably won't until it starts warming up again.

 

[larry@stinescorner]

looks like a tough time of it,,hang in there!

 

[Geo-TH,In]

Loren,
Neighbor lady called me about a month ago want to know if she could tap my two maple trees. I told her, sure but I want some.

The other day she gave me about a cup of what she made. I had breakfast for supper. Pancakes, egg, bacon and oatmeal. This was the first time I ever had homemade maple syrup. It was very good. Neighbor said she only made about 2 gallons total. Nothing on the scale of your operation, but I did think about you when I was eating the pancakes. She said the trees produced sap until we had a warm up. Then it stopped. Cooled off again and the sap after that wasn't as good.
geo
geo

 

[JerryS]

Are you going to have syrup for sale to your YT friends this year?

 

[Ted in NE-OH]

Season is all done in Northeast Ohio, trees are budding.

 

[JayinNY]

Glad to hear that, dad asked me last week how you were doing, I said I dident know, maybe there all done. I hope you get a few more good days for sap to run. Great pics too!

 

[Philip d]

Very impressive setup! You guys have quite a bit of snow,wish we had that ground cover here also. It's been bare here most of the winter.

 

[caterpillar guy]

Don't you have problems with the ruts from each year, not drying out and getting deeper like those kinds of things do?
Don't the buds make your syrup dark so the quality is not as good? I know ours will get dark as the season progresses so when they either quit running or it starts to get dark we quit for the season.

 

[Married2Allis]

Great scenes, beautiful country up there.

 

[Adirondack case guy]

The ruts in the woods don't get very deep The whole bush is on limestone bed rock. Only about a foot of organic matter on the bedrock. The maples send their roots down between the cracks and crevises to obtain nourishment. The field in front of the sap house has a limestone base also and the road just gets plowed up and worked back smooth each spring.
The trees are no where near budding yet. We have had more cold weather since the trees were tapped, than earlier in the season. Winter came late here in central NY. It will more than likely be a couple of weeks before the trees start to bud, and turn the syrup dark and strong flavored, but we do get a lot of people who prefer the darker syrup. (More maple flavor).
Loren

 

[Adirondack case guy]

Yes, I will check with cousin and post contact info. so you can order from him.
Loren

 

[Donald Lehman]

Loren,

We gathered also. Tubing was dripping rather well. Two of the three areas that are buckets had a few buckets full and a lot of trees that had done nothing. The section that the sun hits the most did fairly well. We gathered 920 gallons of sap. We are at about a 2/3 crop at this point compared to last year. One thing is obvious. Trees on tubing will run when trees on buckets won't.

 

[Geo-TH,In]

Loren,
Neighbor lady tapped my maple trees and gave me a sample of her homemade syrup. Very good. I asked her how many gallons of sap does it take to make a gallon of syrup. She said it's 40 to 1. 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.

Does that sound right? If it is, wouldn't that take a lot of heat energy to boil off all that water? 9 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of syrup. How many gallons of sap do you collect and how many trees do you tap?

I don't feel like crunching the numbers to calculate how much electricity or natural gas that would take, but that's can't be cheap.

So do you use maple wood to boil yours to give it a little extra maple flavor?
I wonder what hickory smoke flavor would do to maple syrup.

You have a neat hobby.
geo.