With the warmer weather the sap is running well but not as hard as earlier as some of the tap holes in the smaller trees on the hillsides have stopped producing. We made enough Dark and Very Dark syrup today to fill our back orders. These syrups have a strong  flavour mainly due to the fructose sugar in late season sap that breaks down during boiling mainly to caramel.We expect a strong run of sap tomorrow and to continue for a few days as some areas in the sugar bush are still covered in snow and are slowly thawing out.

Another migrant bird, our resident phoebe, appeared today. The bluebirds are back at the bird house and seem to be building a nest. The winter birds are very busy at the feeder as food seems to be scarce after such a long winter. Birdwatching has  nothing to do with making syrup but we find it very enjoyable to take time from our busy schedule to note the comings and goings of our feathered friends.

Our equipment has been working well but we had an outage today when a relay in the control system for our vacuum pump stopped working shutting off the cooling fan. We were able to bypass the relay and get back in operation. Not the best arrangement but better than not being able to use the vacuum pump. Vacuum helps to stimulate sap flow and also  keeps the lines free of sap. A new relay is in the mail.

We are in the process of phoning or emailing those people who ordered Dark or Very Dark syrup. If you don’t here from us for some reason send us a reminder or call at the camp and we will fill your order. We will be open from 10 t0 5 daily.