The season is underway and we’re collecting sap! 60% of our holes are drilled and the rest should be in next week. We’ve begun leak checking and have almost finished our first pass on each line, where we find missed taps, broken spiles, and large squirrel chews. This usually gets our vacuum from the low teens to the low 20s. After the second pass we’ll try to have everything in the mid 20s as we find smaller leaks. This year we’ve invested in Datacer monitoring systems on three of our four properties. As the season progresses we’ll post more about the various features. First and most important is the vacuum levels at the end of each mainline. The sensors show the vacuum level (absolute and relative to the pumphouse), temperature, and time since last update. As you can see most of the lines at our home sugar bush are in good shape. Something must be wrong on the west side of Robinson road though, it’s averaging 4″ less vacuum than the east side! These systems will help pinpoint leaks so we can tackle them as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Today we drilled the first holes for the 2022 season! We’re a couple weeks later than usual, but with all of the cold weather in January we didn’t miss much sap, and the later tapping should actually result in better late season runs. It shouldn’t take as long to finish this year as every single dropline/tap has been replaced ahead of time along with most of the line repair. Stay tuned, we’ll post again when it warms up and we get our first run!

Our products have recently been added to the shelves of Edinboro Market, a retail location with the mission of providing access to fresh, local food. They offer 40+ product lines that are made or grown within 150 miles of Edinboro, PA.