Martha Carlson's blog

Yesterday, about three inches of snow covered Vittum Hill Road and the emerging sugar maple leaves. Luckily the temperature was just at freezing. The little leaves survived. But it was quite an odd sight.

I visited Loudon sugar producers to pick up more sap samples. Marty and Anne Boisvert gave me a sample of the nitre they scraped off the sap pan at the end of the season. Usually it is a cinnamon brown. This year, the nitre was black as tar with flecks of clear crystals in it: another chemical mystery for the UNH team.

Another sunny day with temperatures forecast as high as 80. I picked up sap samples from Jackie Hunter Rollins on Monday. The Hunters also had a poor year, only making half their usual harvest. Their last real run was also on March 12. Jackie and I stood in the saphouse yard shaking our heads. "Can you believe it," Jackie said. "This is April 5. No snow. Now sap."
In years past, all of us would have been standing in snow and making syrup.

March 21, 2010

Finally cooling off after several days with hot strange weather, clear and beautiful but record-breaking with heat. The air was so dry, the sun had a searing glare to it. We wore hats and dark glasses and took a hike to Center Sandwich yesterday, 70 degrees.
Sap cannot run in this weather. Rudy emptied every tank and bucket on Thursday again. We'll wait a few days and see if the temperature drops enough for a second run. Weatherman predicts snow on Tuesday so perhaps it will get cool enough. But perhaps it won't.

March 13, 2010

February 15, 2010

Wow! A month has gone by. Sap is running. It started running Sunday, February 13, at exactly 12:26 p.m. I decided to hang a few buckets on the North pasture trees just to see. It was 37 degrees F. Poing Poing. Clear liquid sap dripped into the bucket. Today Rudy and I tapped more trees. We're about half finished. This is the earliest we have ever tapped. Maybe we're too eager. But the trees will reprimand us if we are by sealing off their tap holes. If it is an early year, it will be too hot for sugaring by the end of March. We'll have caught the wave.