Spring Is A Month Late.-- Gotta Love It To Do It.

[Adirondack case guy]

Well, to this point in time, the Maple Syrup season has been a Bust.
We should be in full swing now. The local news today said this was the coldest March in a 100 yrs here in Central NY. The coldest March was recorded in 1885. We're 7.9F below average this year.
We started cutting firewood for the evaporators in early Jan. We hung 2150 buckets back in mid Feb., Presidents week, when we had extra help.
We collected some sap about 15days ago, dumping a lot of it as it had soured in the buckets. gathered again last Friday. only got about 800gal. of sap. To date both runs have yielded 19gals. of dark amber syrup. Wooop Peee. We have had to light small maintainance fires twice to keep the small 4x24' evaporator from freezing solid, and have yet to fire the bigger 5x24' evaporator, this year.
This cold hase to break soon, I hope. The weather watchers are talking maybe 50F by the weekend, but still in the 20's tomarrow.

 

[Paul from MI]

I'm not surprised. I kind of wondered how the super cold, long winter would affect sugaring.

 

[jennifer408]

sorry to hear the weather is messing your program. thanks for the pics. we only buy real maple syrup. keep up the good work

 

[ShadetreeRet]

My daffydills have already bloomed and I have a plum tree in full bloom now, but tonight will probably do that in as the chill factor is supposed to sink to 20 or less. The breeze may save it. Had a snow shower this afternoon. Just like a summertime rain shower. Snowed like the dickens for about half an hour and then the sun came out while it was still snowing! And I'm in central Nawth Keerliner! Maybe you will be able to still be able to get a fair amount of sap, I know this has hurt you already, but I am hoping for the best.

 

[Harold Hubbard]

We are getting pretty late, records on the wall show the first boiling to be March 20th, plus or minus five days or so.We finished tapping on Saturday, about 10-1200, all on tubing.

The spring is still frozen up, so I have had to haul water for all the cleaning, and not leave any overnight anywhere that could cause damage if it froze.

Usually we get one or two warm days before sap actually starts running well, a chance to get things set up and cleaned up in the sugarhouse. Monday we spent all day in there freezing our butts off, even though I had started a small fire to boil out the pans, every drop of water spilled on the floor turned to ice instantly.

Yesterday we didn't even start in there until 11 o'clock, no fire, re-lined the evaporator doors and door frame with refractory blanket, and cleaned the ash pit, "Somebody" burned a lot of used lumber last year, and I picked out half a bucket of nails and other hardware from the ashes.

Today I am going to solder a leak in the front pan, set it back on the arch, and bring the first two loads of wood into the sugarhouse.

Friday it should be warm enough to run, and also warm enough to do a final rinse on the tanks and pans before they get filled.

 

[Bret4207]

I've seen a few buckets and bags hanging on this side of the hill, but I haven't seen a bit of steam in the air, much less smelled boiling sap. Hard to say what will happen, but I sure hope it's not one of those years where it goes from highs of 35 to 60 in 2 days.

Friday is the day the guys over here are talking for the run to start. Highs in the 40's. Right now everything is still froze tight. But at least it's not that below zero all day stuff. Had a Jersey drop her calf yesterday AM and that cold would have been a bear to deal with.

FWIW- my wife and I are of the opinion that we haven't had an abnormally hard winter, it's just that we've had easy winters for the past 20 plus years and got lazy. If you look at the the averages for the last 100 years we're just a little cooler for a little longer than "normal".

 

[Bob Bancroft]

Agreed. We sure have had the cold this season, but still not the snow like we used to.

 

[Traditional Farmer]

Thats what I like about making sorghum molasses the weather is nice in the Fall and I like it better than Maple Syrup.

 

[Donald Lehman]

We should finish tapping today or tomorrow. We have made nothing yet. Nobody else has made much yet. Nearly everyone I know has gotton stuck numerous times trying to open up the roads. Two of em have gotton stuck so bad they had to hire a skidder to winch them out. Lotsa mud underneath the snow. Lot of trees won't get tapped in this area this year simply because the mud is so bad nobody can get to them. Snow is still knee deep or deeper in the woods here.Looks like this weekend will be a decent run.

 

[Richard G.]

Amen

 

[GVSII]

(reply to post at 04:57:25 03/26/14)

In NNY this winter has been more like the winters of many years ago but not a record breaker as far as snowfall is concernd.Temp.wise,again,several degrees below recent average but not a record breaker.Overall this one was a lot closer to what I remember in the '40s and '50s.
As for the sugar season I've seen no action around here.

 

[jimg.allentown]

Chill factor will not hurt the plum tree or the daffodils. The damage is done when ice crystals form in the critical parts of the blossoms. Chill factor only affects people. It will NOT freeze water - whether standing in a bird bath, within an blossom, in your radiator, or anywhere else in liquid form.
Time to set the record straight. Chill factor is something the weather guessers made up to amplify or maximize the psychological effect of the colder temperatures. For example, when it is not quite cold enough to draw your attention, they maximize it by throwing in a chill factor to get your attention. There is a legitimate scientific definition of chill factor, but it is only relevant to exposed flesh relating to risk of hypothermia. To the flowers, it does not matter.

 

[Adirondack case guy]

Deep mud is never an issue in this 60A bush. It is all on limestone bedrock. The deepest ruts are only a foot deep.
Back in the early Fifties gramp laid out parallel roads, about 250-300' apart running east and west. All the crevicises run north to south, and there used to be a bad spots on cross roads, but years of rock picking in the adjacent fields, filled the crevices.
Loren, the Acg.

 

[howdy1960]

Living 25 miles north of Syracuse and traveling there for employment each day, last year I counted at least 15 areas tapped, this year only seen 1 tapped

 

[Adirondack case guy]

Harold,
Been down the soddering road before. Last year we had to sodder the drop flue pan on the 5x24' evaporator. We had to take it off the arch and get it outside where we could repair it. The thing weighs about 800# and has to be tipped on edge to get it out of the sap house. You don't wear your Sunday duds when wrastling that thing. LOL. All our front pans are SS.
The cleaning is a real PIA, especially with the gaps in runs.
We looked back at the calanders on the wall of the saphouse, and the latest first boil date on them was March 21,1971. We had a March blizzard and snow was ah deep to a 10' Indian. The buckets on the trees were burried in snow.
Loren

 

[Adirondack case guy]

Bob,
I bet you will be rooting out some frost along the hedge rows this planting season.
Loren

 

[rustyacres sd]

Well I hope it turns around for you. Will be placing an order again for some syrup so hope it starts to warm up and get a good sap flow.

 

[mkirsch]

The nice thing is, it only takes one good run to catch up. Looks like you'll be busy enough for the next several days. Tanks will likely be overflowing and you'll be boiling 24/7.

 

[Jake in NY]

Great pictures! We tapped in mid-February - about 1350 taps so far, almost all on vacuum. We've had a few brief runs so far and have made just over 40 gallons. Started out dark, but switched to medium last weekend. Looks like we may have missed out on light.

Jake in the Catskills