Maple syrup: DONE!!!

Declared victory and pulled out. Shut off the
vacuum pump at nine last night, burned the last
stick of wood at ten, dumped the last fifty
gallons of nasty sap on the ground and locked the
sugarhouse.

Not a bad season, but a rough one, I will wind up
with about 250 gallons, down from 300 last year,
but way more than 150 from two years ago.

All done in fifteen days of twelve plus hours per
day. My wood didn't burn as well as I thought it
should, the sap wasn't very sweet, so I wound up
cutting wood in the morning ans burning it in the
afternoon and evening.

I AM NOT NINETEEN YEARS OLD ANY MORE!!! And I
really feel it.

Today I hope to finish my taxes, do my March
snowplowing bills and not move my body more than
absolutely necessary.

Next week I still have to clean everything up,
break down the drums and fill retail containers,
etc., etc. Right now I'm not sure where to get a
little more wood to boil out the pans.

Two weeks to clean up, then the weekend of April
25-27 for the only real time off before summer
craziness starts. We are going to the New England
Folk Festival in Mansfield MA. Two days of music
dancing and performances. We've been going every
year since 1985, can't miss it.

That maple syrup is very expensive in the super markets. Sure is good on hot pan cakes. I used it over peanut butter on toasted bread for dessert. Hal

We have a cold snap coming towards the end of this week. We are holding out for one more run. One halfway decent run will put us at a bit more sap than last year. We do have more trees tapped this year, though. We have another producer boil our sap so we won't know for sure how we came out this year until then. We are on 100% buckets and except for the last gathering day before yesterday we were in knee deep snow, so we earned it this year. And nope, I ain't as young as I used to be either.lol!

As Don L said, we are holding out for the cold snap and a final run. We finished off a 40gal SS barrow for the comercial market yesterday, and fired the evaporators to day to boil down the rest of the sap in the storage tanks today. I wanted to finish them off last night, but my cousin had evening obligations, and I was haveing a poor day.(blood pressure way too low for me) I don't function well at the pressures that my doc. want's to see. Felt good today and lit the evaporators about 9:30 this morning and we finished off about 20 more gal. of syrup before the tanks went dry.
We have nothing but time to loose and all to gain, if we get one more run for the season. They are paying $2.57/# for comercial syrup here so, another $1,130.80 bucks in the coffer won't hurt, if we get one more run, and can fill another 40 gal. barrel. We're at mother natures whims.
Loren, the Acg.

If I had wood I would hold out for the rest of this week. The taps are still in, and I may be able to peddle the sap somewhere if it runs.

Hal.
My e-mail is open. Shoot me a line and I will return a message with prices delivered to your door, for real Maple Syrup, not store bought that we sell in th e 40gal barrels to processors that add other ingreadients, and call it maple syrup.