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The Final Flows

by Peter 4/16/2014 3:05:00 AM

The ice on the lake is nearly out, green shoots are emerging from the forest floor, and the buds will start to swell soon.  After a week of warm, comfortable temperatures that have signaled that Spring might finally be here, we have had a series of cold nights.  These few freezing temperatures have been enough to cause the trees to run a few more days.  But looking at the 10 day forecast, the freeze/thaw cycle looks like it is about to end.  This will cause the sap to stop flowing and the taste of the sap to change slightly.

Last night we made 15 gallons of syrup, which put our season total at 406 gallons.  This exceeds our annual production record that we set last year of 394 gallons.  It doesn't appear that we will reach the record for syrup per taphole that we set in 2011, when we made about 350 gallons from 700 taps.  This year we put out a little over 1000 taps, so we would have to make about 100 gallons more to beat that record.  This seems unlikely at this point.