Thursday, April 14, 2016

Rule-Breaking Season Comes To An End

An unusual but surprisingly good maple season has come to an end! It was a season that broke all of the rules. The first two weeks starting on March 7th were notable for the warm temperatures and lack of frosty nights. The sap ran continuously even though conventional wisdom said it shouldn't. Then, unlike the usual spring pattern where the weather warms up towards the end of March, we entered a cooling trend. This produced a record flow of sap over Easter weekend. The sap flow continued until our last boil on April 1st, when very wintery weather returned with temps as low as -15 over night. For the first time in our 44 year career, the season ended with cold rather than warm weather. Usually the sap runs after a cold snap, but this year it didn't. We thought we might get one more run this week when it finally thawed out, but the trees seem to have had enough. A humbling and happy reminder that there are still a few mysteries left in life!

Our shelves are now full of delicious maple syrup, maple sugar and maple butter. The sugarhouse will be open for sales this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon from 1pm - 5pm. After that, please call (705) 835-5780 to check our hours or to arrange a time to pick up syrup. Our hours will be irregular as we head to the woods to wash and take down our lines. Happy spring!