Week of 3/10/25

This week of March 10th it started out very warm and sunny with a high of 66 after a low of 26. A decent day for the maple sap to flow. After cleaning out the ashes from the syrup evaporator, splitting the kindle wood for when we start the next fire in the evaporator. I collected the sap from the trees we don’t have on the lines. After Ted brought in the sap from the collection tanks we had 450 gallons of sap. I started to cook at 2:30 and got done at 7:30 in the evening.

Tuesday was a bit cooler but still warm with a high of 50 but the morning low only got down to 32. This is not cold enough to pressurize the tree for a good sap flow. So we didn’t cook today, instead we worked in the blackberry patch taking out the old dead ones and the small weaker ones. I also pruned back the tall strong ones.

Wednesday again was a warm and sunny day with a high of 56 and a low of 25, frosty enough for the sap to flow. I cooked from 2:00 to 7:30 after collecting the sap. I also fixed some fence early in the morning where I had dropped a tree I had cut last winter.

Thursday got even warmer with a high of 65 and a low of 26. But it got warm too fast for a good sap flow. I took hay up to the cows on the ridge this morning. There were 4 grey swallows in the maple tree this morning. They like the sweet sap from the tree. After collecting sap we only had 200 gallons. I decided to wait until Friday to see if you get some more before starting up the cooker.

Friday was like a summer day with a high of 75 and only 46 for a low. No sap today so I cooked the 200 gallons that we had before it spoiled. I had it cooked by noon. I took the rest of the day off as it was too hot to work outside. Afterward, we had a windy and stormy Friday night with about one-tenth of an inch of rain.

Saturday morning started out warm with the temp falling throughout the day and ending at 32. After going to the Antonson woods and cleaning out the holding tank I decided to clean out the evaporator as the syrup was getting dark from all the warm weather.

Sunday morning it was down to 28 and warmed up to 43. The trees did not start to sap until 2 in the afternoon. I had a wood buyer today who took 3 1/2 full cords of Hickory wood for smoking meat. Ruth has a syrup order for 7 1/2 gallons of very dark syrup when we get it.

Addition: I seen the first Robin on Friday.

-Helmuth Krause