3/31/13
Another season in the woods near Talkeetna is starting! Dylan, India, and Josh arrived early to help install tubing to another 1500 trees. It’s a challenge – a combination of physics, design, art, intuition … they would probably come up with a couple of other descriptions! The rest of the crew arrives this week, and we will be off and running – with a new crew, a new RO (more capacity), a hopefully a sweet harvest.
4/29/13
We are headed for our latest harvest ever…it’s been a long, cold spring. Temp last night was 18 degrees F. Sap starts to flow a bit in the afternoon, but many trees are still dry. All the tubing/vacuum trees are tapped up and we are collecting a bit of sap from them, but the buckets are still on the ground, waiting for better flow. The crew has been putting in gravity lines for more taps; if we are going to have a short one, we just have to tap more trees!
5/14/13
Wow! What a season! As we expected, it was fast and furious. Our first official day was May 4th (average start date is April 18th!). Sap is high in sugar and abundant–that is good, as it looks like it could be a short harvest! But there is snow in the forecast…