Rick and his son collected 200 gallons of sap this afternoon and then left for Rick's 65th birthday supper with family. I went out to the sugarbush around 5:00PM after a day at the office and ran half of those 200 gallons through the evaporator. I called it a day at 10:30PM. I plan to be back out in the sugarhouse around 10:00AM to run the remaining sap through the evaporator in anticipation of a collection late in the afternoon tomorrow. When the sap is running, it can make for some long days, which stretch into late nights, to keep up with the evaporating. In five and a half hours this evening, I put approximately 100 gallons of sap through the evaporator. With the size of evaporator we are using, that is about the best rate we can expect. It takes "tending to the business" to achieve that rate--keeping the fire stoked, regulating the levels of sap in the two pans, and defoaming as needed. Starting up the evaporator and shutting it down at the end of the day or night both take some extra time. We now have a nice amount of syrup in the finisher that is ready for the next steps--finishing and bottling. By my estimate, there should be six gallons of syrup, moreorless.