First, another season update. This season is looking a lot like 2021, a mostly frozen January/February followed by a flood of sap in early March, then warm weather with no freezes. We’ve passed our 2021 production numbers by 5-10% to put us at 85% of a normal crop. Based on other reports in the area we feel fortunate to have that much. Our pumps are still hoping it freezes tonight and that the taps are not dried out just yet.

Another Datacer update. One great feature is the ability to turn the vacuum pump on/off remotely. In February we had an unexpected issue where ice formed in a releaser, preventing the submersible pumps from running. We noticed this while at another property. Instead of racing home to turn the vacuum pump off before it sucked sap, we were able to press a few buttons and turn it off from 20 miles away. Anyone who has ever cleaned a flooded rotary claw pump knows how valuable this is! The pumphouse controller has several other features, including tank level sensors, pressure sensors, sap drain control, and indoor/outdoor temperature monitors.

Quick season update – We’ve made over 50% of the syrup we made last year, and if you count all of the sugar in the evaporator/chiller/tanks we’re probably approachingg 50% of a normal crop (last year we only hit around 80% due to poor weather). We should get a few decent runs this week, a nice freeze over the weekend, then some big runs next week!

We’ve been using our Datacer tank sensors to calculate gallons of sap per hour. Based on the attached chart, our 4,000 gallon tank filled up in 4 hours, so our 7,000 taps at this location ran 1,000 gallons/hour! All four tanks filled up that day, we were very close to overflowing but managed to get our truck there in time. We’ve always had cameras on our tanks but this allows us to quickly calculate when they would overflow, sometimes allowing us to sleep easier at night!

Over the last five years we’ve always battled ice on the west side of our Robinson Road property. Without a pump house and vacuum pump to keep everything warm, the mechanical releaser would inevitably freeze. The resulting ice always caused issues on the 2000 taps it serviced. This year we ran 2200′ of service wire to power a new electric releaser and space heater, all contained in an insulated box. We also ran electric to the sap lift 500′ away for another space heater/insulated box combo. So far everything has stayed comfortably above freezing and we’ve avoided all of the issues that plagued us in the past.

The freeze up this past week allowed us to finish tapping and finish a few repairs. The weekly weather report shows the season kicking into gear soon, we’re ready for more sap!