The Winter That Won't Quit

The calendar says that it's spring and the sap should be running, but Mother Nature says otherwise.  We received 20 centimetres of fresh snow last night to add to the metre already on the ground.  And with temperatures forecast to plunge to -16 tonight and remain firmly below freezing all week, it looks like the maple sugaring season is to be delayed yet again.

This year may be shaping up to be a record breaker, in one way or another -- in 1997, we boiled the first sap of the season on March 25th and the season carried on until April 21st, the latest start and finish in our 42 year career.  This week we had several very brief sap runs but as of today, March 22nd, we are yet to have collected enough sap to boil.

In the meantime, we are doing our best to have everything ready for the run that must come eventually.  Stay tuned!

Still buried

Good Old Fashioned Winter!

A long winter means a late start to the maple syrup season.  The sustained cold and lack of thaws means that our maple trees are frozen solid.  It will take a number of warm sunny days to melt the snow away from the tree trunks and allow the sap to begin to flow.  The weather forecast suggests that maple sugaring will begin towards the last third of March this year - more like it did when Ken started making syrup 42 years ago.  In recent years, we've become used to warmer winters and sap flows starting late February.  Our snowshoes had started to gather dust hanging on the wall, but not this year.  It's been far too cold to begin tapping yet but as soon as the temperature starts climbing close to the freezing point, we will strap on the snowshoes and head to the sugarbush!

Our sugarhouse will remain closed while we're tapping.  We will open as soon as we have fresh syrup available.  Please continue to check back in for updates as things hopefully get underway soon.

snowed in