Last week’s sap run was one to remember. The trees really opened up Wednesday afternoon and kept our releaser running hard for nearly 48 hours straight. This is exactly why we run two submersible pumps in the releaser. Most of the time a single pump handles the job just fine, but a few times each season the flow climbs past 20 gallons per minute and the second pump has to kick on to keep up.

From Wednesday through Saturday we collected more than 45,000 gallons of sap from our home woods alone. On top of that, we hauled in another 45,000 gallons from the two outside woods we still purchase sap from. It made for a busy stretch in the sugarhouse, but runs like that are what every sugarmaker hopes for this time of year.

The flow unfortunately tapered off on Sunday and has been slow for most of this week. We’re hoping for a solid hard freeze to reset the trees and get things moving again. Vacuum levels have been strong all season, so we’re confident the tap holes are still ready to produce once the weather decides to cooperate.

Our eleventh season is off to a great start. On Friday we filled a dozen barrels and still had enough chilled concentrate on hand to boil down another twelve drums on Monday. It took a few days for the woods to fully thaw, but with fresh tap holes and melting snow reserves, the sap ran strong all week. Tomorrow’s freeze should help recharge the trees’ sap reserves—and thankfully, this weekend gave us a chance to refill our own sleep reserves.

Last year we posted about adding a second vacuum pump to our home pump house, and how one of the bearings went bad. Last month we had some help replacing the bearing on the first pump, and also replacing a damaged seal on the second pump. The seal showed signs of heat damage, which resulted in a little gearbox oil passing over to the claws and out the exhaust. Both pumps are ready to go, we just have to re-attach the VFDs and PVC inputs.

We’ve readied 39 of 41 mainlines this month, tomorrow we’ll fix the last two (dead end tree uprooted and high tensile wire snapped), then we’ll start tapping! Only 6800 holes to drill this year instead of 22,000, we’ll be done in four days with plenty of time before our next thaw!