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....