I just finished an 8-day stretch in the sugarbush gathering sap and/or running the evaporator on these days. The sap has not run to speak of since last Friday; daytime high temperatures have approached 60 degrees. It has not frozen for several nights. I am quite certain the season is over--over except for the clean-up. There are no freezing overnight low temperatures in the forecast, so I don't expect sap flows to be recharged. The red maple are in full bud. I suspect that the brother species will follow as soon as the snow pack is gone.

I plan to wait until later this week to pull spiles and gather up the bags and bagholders. There is still a lot of heavy wet snow in the woods. With a few more days of warm weather and possibly some rain, much of that snow may be gone so this part of the clean up will be less of a chore. We are not yet driving to the sugarbush, which means everything is still being packed or sledded in or out. That includes the water needed for clean-up.

Today we finished and bottled 23 gallons of syrup, which brings our season total to 68 and 1/4 gallons. That exceeds our previous season record total of 66 gallons. There is a need to footnote the record. The new record was achieved with 200 taps; the previous record was obtained with 175 taps.

Yes, the woodpile will also need to be replenished.