Great week

The sap started to flow Monday and Tuesday, but the flow was a little slow. Then on Wednesday and Thursday I got the most sap per tap I have ever gotten since I started 17 seasons ago. On Friday the sap flow was about like a typical good day.

Today I woke up to cold temperatures, it never got warm enough to thaw the trees, but we had plenty of sap because we had boiled Wednesday’s sap and then held Thursday’s sap for the weekend. That was because today was our first of 4 days called Maple Weekend, when we are open to the public. We will be open again Sunday 10-4 and will repeat again next week, Saturday and Sunday, 10-4 each day. Being quite cold until about 2:00 pm traffic was a little slow but those who came were both interested in how maple syrup is made, how we do it and they bought lots of syrup. In spite of a smaller crowd, sales were good.

Tomorrow the temperature will be above freezing before the 10:00 opening time and will be up to 48 F by the ending time, thus the sap will be flowing well. That way people will get to see us firing the evaporator like normal (today we ran the evaporator slower so we wouldn’t run out of sap), as well as see the vacuum system bring sap directly to the sugarhouse, even from across the roadway into the sugarhouse. They will get to see the reverse osmosis (RO) removing lots of water from the sap before we boil it and witness how well the pre-heater in the hood heats the sap before it flows into the evaporator pans. In other words, they will see us making syrup at our normal speed.

If any of you are in the area, stop and see our operation. We are at 1220 Canal Rd., Oneida, 13421. Google maps will get you there from anyplace. While here, you can sample our syrup and mostly our special product, bourbon barrel aged maple syrup. That has proven to be a huge success, great taste, little or no alcohol. See you here, tomorrow or next weekend, Saturday or Sunday 10-4.