An early ending to the 2012 sugaring season...

Yesterday (Sunday), I boiled off the last of the sap and made 3 quarts of syrup. I think the sugar content was down in the sap, but that's not a big deal. In the end, it was the darkest syrup I have ever made. It tastes different than the lighter syrup, but equally as good (in my opinion).

All in all, we made just shy of 2 gallons this year. That's less than half of last year, which was a very good year. An article in the paper (link to article) sums up the season around here - mild winter, very warm February and March. This is Maple Weekend in New Hampshire, but I think most places are already done boiling. Better luck next year!

Thanks for reading.

Not a lot of sap...but another quart of syrup

They weather has been tough. The temperature has been almost high enough to really let the sap run, but unfortunately it never got there. Mid-upper thirties with some sun. After collecting the buckets this morning and boiling, another quart of syrup is complete. Some of the sap was starting to taste buddy. One tree was really bad, so I dumped that one. Early signs of the end, I think. A couple decent days are coming up, but the forecast for Wednesday is 61 degrees ?!

All done for the day!

One half gallon, exactly, all finished. For the first time ever, when I brought the boiling sap (now syrup) inside to finish on the stove, it was already done. I only boiled for 2-3 minutes inside. This is in contrast to a couple hours inside, which creates a nice, sticky mess on the cupboards.

First boil

Finally set up the burners today and started boiling. I have about 20 gallons of sap or so and hope to get around a half gallon of syrup. I keep watching the trees to see if the buds are starting. We'll see how the syrup tastes before coming to any conclusions.

Glad to be back

Welcome back! After putting four taps in Wednesday, we finished putting in the rest of the hanging-bucket taps yesterday. 19 so far. It seems really early to be doing it, yet I see it was the same weekend last year. A lot of people put them in a full week earlier as the weather was changing.

This had been a 'dud' of a winter. After a decent snowstorm before the holidays, there hasn't been more than a few inches of snow...total. The yard is covered with an icy/snow mix of about 2-3 inches thick. Tromping through the woods to tap usually involves snowshoes. Not this year. Word has it that the sugaring season will be shortened by no snow because the trees will bud earlier. We'll see....