What a surprise this morning to see a few inches of slush instead of a foot of sloppy, wet snow.  Between Chester and Concord it was just rain.  But on the way home tonight it was a slick and slippery ride with the late afternoon snow on top of that rain.  Brian’s boiled and packed more syrup over the last few days so we are adding to the tally daily.

Hours         Sat March 2nd    12-4 pm                Sun Mar 3rd    12-5 pm  Boiling both days

Yesterday and last night the bucket on the tree out behind the house filled up halfway with sap.  So first thing this morning Brian went out on a hopeful note to scout up some sap for boiling today.  But no luck.  Even after almost 2 hours he had only about 50 gallons to show for his efforts.  Still it was pretty out in the woods as this photo shows.

We will be home all day so if someone wants to drop in and pick up some syrup just give us a call.  603-370-0908 or 603-887-3672.

Brian went out early this morning to scout the trees and see if any sap ran yesterday.  A few had a couple inches in the buckets but not enough to boil today.  That’s the way it goes sometimes.  But we will be opening at 11 am instead of 12 since we don’t have to wait for Brian to collect.  As an added bonus today we’ll have some Maple Cupcakes from Chesters’ own E & D’s Cupcakery, LLC.  They get their maple syrup from yours truly for their maple buttercream frosting.  Yummy stuff!  Supplies will be limited today as a trial offering.

And we’re off!  as they say into a new maple season.  So far this year we are seeing much more seasonal weather than last year at this time.  With a little luck this will bode well for a good year (or at least a year better than last!).   Brian started tapping last week and with the mild temps mid-week he started collecting and boiling.  Today he expects to finish boiling off the sap from the last few days runs.  It’ll be cold today and Monday so we may not see a run again until the rain comes in on Tuesday.

YIKES!  How about that wind today!!!  My car was pushed around quite a bit on the highway coming home from work. Although surprisingly we had no power outages.

Again we stand on the verge of a new season.  Brian is in his day-to-day checking of the weather forecasts trying to pick when the best time is to start tapping.  Ideally we want some cold so you can take a few days to get completely tapped before the sap starts running.  But everything is in place;  the wood for the evaporator has been ready and stacked for months, the buckets and spiles are all freshly scrubbed and clean and there are cases of jugs waiting to be filled with fresh, hot maple syrup.

This year will make our 4th season as a participating member of  a group of sugar makers across the state working with the Maple Watch research team at UNH.  We collect sap at various intervals through the season and freeze them.  Records are kept to help the researchers know what factors were present at the time of collection and then syrup made from the sap is also collected and frozen to be sent to the lab for analysis.  Studies are hoping to find out how maples are doing and if, and how, environmental changes factor into their well-being.

This weekend Brian will be at the Newburyport Farmers Market at the Tannery from 9 am to 1 pm.  Then we’ll be absent from the market until after sugar season is over.