The Week in Review

Chief of Operation writes:

Notes from a couple of memorable days of sugaring during the final week of March.

March 27/28

• 8pm, getting colder and the day’s sap run starting to peter out.
  
  
• 10pm, temp fallen to 28°, sap lines mostly frozen with hardly a trickle running into the extractor vessel. Today’s collection will go through the RO (machine that concentrates sap) during the night to be boiled in the morning along with the new sap run.
  
  
• 12pm, temp risen to 32°, sap lines surging with sap from thawed ice dams, submersible pump in the extractor vessel and its backup pump are overwhelmed by the turbulent flow, causing sap to back up into the incoming lines. The backup safety vessel turns off power to the vacuum pump when this happens.
  
  
• 3am, temp risen to 37°, sap coming in faster than the RO can process it, sap holding tanks approaching full capacity, tank holding concentrated sap from the RO approaching full capacity, Chops is starting to worry which tank might overflow first. Incoming sap tests 2.2% sugar which is the first time this season sap sweetness has exceeded 2%, this radiant clear sap in not to be wasted and the heat is on.
  

• 5am, start boiling which relieves pressure on the full concentrate tank since the evaporator draws concentrate faster than the RO can produce it, temp is slowly falling back towards freezing and the RO is now keeping up with the sap flow.
  
  
• 7am, sap lines are frozen again, ending this gushing nocturnal run.

March 29

6” snow last night, skied close to 2,000’ vertical through fresh powder from top of Morningside Ridge above our south-side sugarbush in the morning, slept all afternoon, temperature too cold most of the day for a run.

March 30/31

Temperature remained locked on 33° to the nearest 1/2° from 6am until 9am the following day, with a pilgrim run (slow and steady) the whole time, rather amazing it could remain that constant through the heat and cold of a daily cycle.

‘Twas a sugaring week with a bit of everything weather-wise. It’s so annoying the sap ran mostly at night. Don’t those trees have any respect for an old man?

—LC

What is a bit of everything?
This past week Mother Nature scrambled all the elements of sugar season weather: snow, sleet, graupel, cold rain, even thunder and lightning; wind from the northwest, wind from the south; freezing nights, above-freezing nights; clouds, sunshine. The upshot is that temps stayed cool enough to keep the season going, meaning that the maple buds have not yet swollen to the point of bud break.

MUSIC TO BOIL BY:
The Beatles #1’s in consecutive order
Songs Lew Hums (playlist by JG)
Ana’s Top Hits from 2020
Chicago – Sufjan Steven’s
Walking on the Moon – The Police
Bam Bam – Sister Nancy
Bittersweet Symphony – The Knocks Foster the People
Some Sunsick Day – Morgan Delt
Hung Up – Madonna
Maple Leaf Rag – Scott Joplin/William Albright
Cumbia sobre el mar – quantic
Monolithic – Cults
Our socks forever more – this is the kit
Stay Forever – Ween
Give Me Money – Abby Webster
Right Down the Line – Sam Evian
Sugar on my Tongue – Talking Heads
Purple Gas – Zach Bryan & Moeline Hofman
Beercan – Beck

Synopsis of Thursday’s main line break (documented by master woods crew man Larry):