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Wow, what a strange season in 2004.  Warm in late December, then sub zero until mid February.  I tapped the third week of February when the sap started flowing.

Two weeks later, it hit 60 degrees on one day, then a week of 50's.  Bad bad bad.  Buddy syrup was signaling the drastic end of the season.

But wait...really cold temps again and a deep snow pack helped pull back mother nature a little longer to get some more sap.  That is, as long as you wanted to risk drilling some more fresh holes since bacteria had stopped the flow of the ones from February.

We had 100 taps on tubing and 50 taps on buckets in 2004.  Roughly 400' of 1/2" mainline and 1000' of 5/16" branch line.

The buckets required a drive with a 55 gallon drum in a wagon to have a place to pump out the dumping stations (garbage cans) that were posted in the woods on the North side of my house in the neighbor's woods.

All in all, 1800 gallons of sap translated into 29 gallons of syrup.  We ate or sold every drop by December.

Another long look at the Leader Catalog and asking permission from my South neighbor to tap and ... maybe 350 taps for 2005?

If you do the math, I must be crazy...