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A sugarmaker's lament - NOT!

by Don 3/15/2012 2:31:00 AM

Mary and I had a sudden burst of optimism yesterday when puddles in our driveway had a thin layer of ice and the windshield of my car required use of my defroster.

After draining the 200 gallons of milky white sap on the ground from our lower collecting tank (it would have made poor quality syrup), the stainless steel tank was powerwashed clean and we waited in anticipation of a possible "run".

Our vacuum pump reached a peak of 28" vacuum, so we sat back and waited.  We collected 800 gallons of sap in the next 24 hours and although slowly, the sap is still flowing at a rate of 1/2 gallon/minute.

  We will start the evaporator on Friday, March 16th and we should draw off our first syrup by early evening.  We don't yet have enough sap to start up our reverse osmosis. Hopefully the sap will continue to drip and we continue to be amazed (and confused) at the unpredictability of nature!