WEATHER WHIPLASH is the colloquial term for wild swings in temperature. Take the past few days for example. Yesterday’s high was near 50 degrees F. and by this morning the thermometer read 10 degrees. Tree limbs felled by last night’s wind litter the skiff of new snow. By Sunday we’ll forget it was ever cold.
But we all know how flukey the weather is everywhere. As maple sugarmakers we know that we need to stay looser than ever because April could come in January as it did this winter and then come again in March, or March could come too late, meaning after the buds have opened. We still do talk like this, as though we know, say, what February weather is supposed to be.
It could happen that April will arrive in the first week of March. “But don’t give up on winter,” says meteorologist Tim Kelley, though he points out that meteorological winter ends today. In the upper reaches of the sugarbush there is still a foot or more of very dense, old, dirty snow.
HOW’S IT RUNNING? Starting the afternoon of 2/27 the sap ran well overnight and through most of 2/28.
SAP SWEETNESS: Up to 2.2% sugar from 1.4% earlier in February.
BOILING STATUS:
February 13th: The Soft Launch. We had just enough sap to sweeten the pans and make a 40-gallon drum of syrup.
February 27th: We boiled sap collected a week earlier plus new sap.
February 28th: The Hard Launch. ‘Twas a full day of boiling crystal clear sap.
HILL REPORT from Larry:
The woods crew have been scouting the lines while the sap is running, searching for and repairing holes in the tubing system that transports sap from the trees to the sap storage tanks sheds. Critters with sharp teeth and/or very strong jaws are the most common culprits. Red Squirrels supplementing their diets with shavings of plastic line fittings, and black bears piercing thick main lines for who knows what reasons. Grumpy to have been awoken too early by the unseasonably warm weather? The squirrels, meanwhile, are in full courtship mode, chasing potential mates up, down and around tree trunks, seemingly energized by the warmth and the sap they have gleaned from the chewed lines.
-LL
AND MORE…
On Monday we STIRRED SUGAR. These two video clips show the process.
This first clip starts with syrup that has boiled for a half hour. In all we stirred constantly for two hours.
Then we stirred intermittently for five hours. When the sugar was finally at room temp we sifted it. Sifting too early causes the sugar to cake up.
The Nebraska Knoll Blog 
We’ve been calling it Apruary this year, though walking lines in the 10 degree wind yesterday felt decidedly wintry and was a novel experience. We got absolutely hammered by the wind on Wednesday night, and I could hear the tone of the vacuum pump changing as it moved more and more air as the night went on. When I woke up, we had dropped to 12″ all the way down from almost 27″ when I left off walking on Wednesday afternoon.
We were able to find a lot yesterday, and thankfully almost all of the damage found was droplines dragged off of spouts. The highest section of our woods still needs attention, but it was on wind hold for us until very late in the day. We were closing in on 20″ yesterday afternoon, and with a few more repairs tomorrow our vacuum monitoring system should start providing usable information and hopefully we can get back to something like a tight woods.
For today, I’ve got to get the boiler put together, and see if I can remember how the sugarhouse works. We’ve got something like 3500 gallons of concentrate to work through, so it should be a nice little shakedown, with no RO or tank cleaning to distract.
Enjoy the (brief) respite and sunny day today!
BSH
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Apruary – brilliant, Ben. I laughed then told everyone.
The crew’s detective work raised our vacuum from 5″ to 18″ during this week’s run. As you know the max here is 26″.
I like “…and see if I can remember how the sugarhouse works.” Ah, yes. We had a filter press fiasco on Wednesday when, after changing the filter papers, syrup leaked profusely. Chops and Sam (Kelly) couldn’t find the problem so took the press apart of course, scrubbed the plates, and reassembled it with care. Meanwhile Jenn (our Jenn) drew off pail after pail of syrup that had nowhere to go except into white pails. (You know the scene here.)
It reminded me of an “I Love Lucy” episode in which Lucy bakes bread. She opens the oven and the loaf of bread comes and comes and keeps coming as she holds the end of it and backs across the kitchen, mouth gaping open.
We skated in spiiled syrup on the floor as we reached for more pails, then there was the harrowing scene of running all those pail-draws back through the finish trough and standardizing the density. An hour after the filter press acted out we were back on track. Chops hosed off his jeans and boots. The crew were – and are – calm, cool, and collected and I know enough to stay out of the way.
I’m wishing you “a nice little shakedown .” AC
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Great read ! Hope your weather cooperates over the next few weeks.
Snowing and cold in Gross Morne. Take care all, Steve and Carol
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Hi Steve and Carol, We asked Jenn if she knew a Steve and Carol from Gros Morne and she said Yes, they’re my parents! What fun! AC
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Richard, Imagine the sound track for this movie….AC
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That maple sugar looks so good-
I can almost smell it from a few thousand miles away.
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It’s aroma therapy. AC
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The first couple boils are always a little disjointed, and syrup on the floor is always very slick – I liked you calling it skating. I’m deeply familiar with open valves leading to catastrophic messes – our boiling room feels like it has dozens that one needs to recall at the start of the season. Things went relatively smoothly for us, less sugar in the concentrate than I had estimated, and it really didn’t want to filter (our big press is usually good for 1000-1200 gallons, but was done after 250), but other than an unhappy back, it was pleasantly uneventful. Pressurizing our boiler for the first time is always a little nervy, but other than a long wait to heat the ice cold perm that we filled it with, it all went fine.
Yesterday was surprisingly light in terms of sap flow, but warm enough to be able to productively walk lines. Hopefully today will put the finishing touches on storm recovery, and I can spend tomorrow cleaning up broken wires.
Good luck with the run this week, I’m excited to head out for a beach day!
BSH
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