As of this past Tuesday, the sap stopped running. Well, mostly that is. What little bit still ran was poor (bad) quality. Good clear sap will run for four or five weeks as long as the weather cooperates. You must have freezing and thawing, and we're not getting it. It got warm and stayed warm, and the extended forecast is for another week of warm weather. We love the warm Spring weather, but that ends the maple syrup project for this year. The trees are budding, and the yellowish, cloudy sap makes nasty-tasting syrup unfit for human taste-buds. I tried to use it one year, and never again. It was a waste of time and effort. You can take my word for it. When the sap goes bad, it is time to quit.
This is our little sugar shack.
One of the largest sugar maple trees that we tap.
This is the set up in our sugar shack with the reverse osmosis system on the left. It removes two-thirds of the water from the sap before it goes into the evaporator.
We finished the season with thirty-nine gallons of syrup. That's lower than most years. On a big year, we've finished up to seventy gallons, although the average is usually around fifty to fifty-five.
Here's a batch just ready to come off.
Here's an interesting note that demonstrates how you must work with the weather: Do you remember the hard winter we had last year (2015)? And it just hung on and on. Normally, we will tap the trees mid-February, but last year, it was early March when we tapped, and March 8 until we got our first "run" of sap. The season was a late one, and we ended it last year on April 2.
This year was more typical for a start date. The winter was so mild that we even wondered if there would be a maple season. We tapped on February 18 and 19, and through the short season (ending March 8) we had only twelve days of sap "runs." Did you notice our ending date? Yes, it was the same day that we started in 2015. You just never know. And why only twelve days of runs? Because there were a couple times during the season when the temperature was too cold for the sap to run.
If you'd like to taste some of this delicious product, come to our "Maple Syrup for Missions" meal on the morning of April 9, 2016. We've been doing the meal at our church - Sonnenberg Mennonite - for quite a few years. This year will be the nineteenth consecutive year. It's always fun, and always a special treat with made-from-scratch buttermilk pancakes, fresh (never frozen) German sausage patties and links made by the men of the church, Maine blueberry sauce, and of course, real maple syrup.
The serving hours will be 7 A.M. to 10:30 A. M. and the price is whatever you wish to donate for the meal. There will also be extra sausage and syrup for sale. All proceeds go to our mission projects near and far.
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The Hershberger family on Zuercher Road also makes maple syrup. Here Johnny is gathering it.
This is the sugar house on the Dan Swartzentruber farm. They have a large evaporator in it.
My Amish friends and neighbors are busy in their fields, still hauling manure, and plowing. With horses, they can get an earlier start plowing than those with large tractors. But then, they need to. It takes them a lot longer to get the soil turned with a one-bottom plow.
From Kidron, Ohio, have a wonderful weekend! So long.
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