It has remained pretty cool in the woods, keeping our tubing lines frozen most days until early to mid-afternoon. However, when they have thawed out, we have had some pretty good flows. On Saturday morning we started the reverse osmosis machine around sunrise, processed 1400 gallons of sap and by dinner we had made 47 gallons of Dark Robust syurp.
An interesting fact that I read last year in The Maple News said that Sugar Maple buds emerge after 114 growing degree days. A growing degree is any degree above 50 degrees. So if today's high is 58, it counts as 8 growing degrees. If tomorrow it hits 63, that is 13 more growing degrees for a total of 21. Once you hit 114, the buds emerge and the season is over. So far we haven't had any growing degree days and there aren't any in the 10 day forecast. As we all know, weather forecasts can change dramatically. But for the time being, it appears that this maple syrup season will continue for several weeks.