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Season 88 Begins |
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Saturday, 04 March 2006 23:38 |
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Heading back to Wisconsin to get ready for the season. Buckets are washed. But we have to get the building ready and prepare for tapping. It looks like the weather will break this week. By Tuesday or Wednesday we are expected to have highs around 40 and freezing nights. January was very warm. No snow. No freezing nights. No frost in the ground. No ice on the rivers or ponds. February turned cold and we got snow. Every season is an adventure. Let's see what this season holds. |
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And it Snows |
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Sunday, 05 March 2006 19:55 |
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Welcome to Wisconsin. It started snowing tonight. Not sure how much we will get. It seems to be a light snow. There is about 12 inches of snow in the woods from a storm about two weeks ago. |
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Woke up to Snow; Tapped 125 |
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Monday, 06 March 2006 18:52 |
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Woke up this morning to snow falling. We got about 2 inches overnight. It did not look promising to do any work in the woods, but the trees were very pretty covered in snow. About 10:30 the snow stopped and the sky cleared. The sun came out and it got warm. We went in to the woods to open up the sugar shack. Then decided we should start tapping. After lunch we loaded up the tractor bucket with pails, covers and spouts and set out into the woods. The weather was perfect for tapping. After drilling the tap whole the sap started running out right away. Sap dripping from the spout and hitting the bottom of the pails caused the nice ping, ping, ping that tells use the season is really here. Tomorrow we will try to finish the tapping. |
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Hoar Frost; 225 More Taps |
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Tuesday, 07 March 2006 20:18 |
The day started out cold, but sunny. It was down to 10 degrees last night. There was a special type of frost called "hoar frost" on the trees in the morning. Hoar frost is caused when water goes directly from gas to solid without the liquid stage in-between. It can be very pretty as it covers everything in a white fluffy coating. But with a little sun it quickly melts.
About 10:00 we started tapping again. It warmed up and by 11:00 the trees were dripping. By the end of the day we had put out 225 more taps for a total now of 350. Tomorrow we plan to put out the remaining 50.
We also had a delivery of bottles that we use for the finished syrup. A semi truck delivered them about 11:15.
Rain is forecast for tonight and maybe Thursday. March is an unpredictable month for weather. |
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300 Gallons of Sap |
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Wednesday, 08 March 2006 20:15 |
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Started the days work by finishing up tapping. We had 50 taps to put out yet. And these were some of best running trees. We put our largest buckets, 16 quarts, on these trees. It did not freeze last night. The taps we put out on Monday and Tuesday ran all night. As we walked around the woods we could see we needed to collect. So we called for help and then got the collecting tank cleaned and setup. About 2:00 pm we headed out to collect. Some buckets were full. Most were at least half full. By the time we finished we had 300 gallons of sap. Not bad for the first collection of the season. We had a little trouble with a valve on the storage tank. It would not seal. We ended up taking it apart to fix it. A leaky valve would cause us to loose a great deal of sap. We did not get any rain yet. Now its forecast to come in tonight. And its not supposed to freeze either. Tomorrow we will get the evaporator cleaned and setup and start boiling the sap to make our first syrup of the season. |
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