Thank you for the knowledge! Sure is a trip how nature and science can get so crazy! 🤪 In all honesty though, in the time it would take me to thaw half that pail I likely could've melted the ice in a pan and evaporated the water too 😂 weather this year has been nuts.

I think it will be, but who knows? Our biggest concern at the moment is volume, considering how little is flowing and how little we're getting. That said it's still early in the season, so I'm hoping spring catches up with whatever this is and we get our regular March of drippy drip. Thanks for watching!

Thanks so much, happy to hear you're digging the content! New video up 9:30 tonight, the third boil and some weather in the woods!

🤣 It's a slow go so far, but I'm hoping our volume shoots up a touch. Oh she's a helluva bowler, handed me my shirt that day, and it wasn't even polyester blend with cool retro diamonds on it 🎳 Next video should be out Friday - I'm trying to work out a schedule where we can get stuff up at a regular time and day.

Morning! Having a coffee and checking the online stuff before I head outside for boil #3. Glad to have you along Mike, appreciate all the thumbs up and comments and subs. Let's be honest here, as of the moment I don't have a sugar shack and I'm operating with a small number of trees, many of which are within a forest vs. super exposed to the sunny-goodness... so if I didn't find the light side of this nonsense it might drive me mad 😜😂 I'm with you on evaporating it all!!!!

🎳🧊 Could you imagine!? A vendor bought me that skull and cross bones ball years back, it was a lovely excuse for off-site meetings with him (we became fast friends). I remember being at a really greasy bowling alley that chewed it up a touch in the return, made me sad lol, would definitely not be smashing frozen sap with it. Mind you when my wife saw the video and realized I was hitting it with an axe head, she probably would've preferred the bowling ball. 🤣🤣

🤣😂 I am glad you have a great sense of humour, cheers :)@@simplewoodslife

🤣🤣🤣 oh my tips are always on point lol. Those pants might be the cheapest work gear on the planet, but they're my second pair in 10 years... they seem to be relatively indestructible. They're a brand called Tradesmax Pro, just a simple cargo workpant and I picked them up at Giant Tiger here in Canada for something ridiculous like $28. Unsure the US equivalent but maybe you can check them out online? www.bit.ly/3UNoT56

One hundred percent! I just love that she likes hanging out with me - I'm sure when I build a sugar shack down the way and there's a consistent warmth I'll see way more of her 🤣. We just keep reminding ourselves the operation is "small batch" heh... Mind you, I haven't stopped telling people about your haul last night. Our butcher was dutifully impressed when I threw those numbers at him. Less so when he asked what we pulled in... but "small batch" so. 😗🎵😂

@@simplewoodslife ahh thanks theres still way bigger guys than me but they arent doing it on a barrel stove im through 1 55 gal drum as we speak and i have a little over half of the other one to go this cold weather has sped up the burn rate im not sure how but thank the Lord.

Still impressive!! Do you have a blower or fan or anything on the fire? Sounds like you're getting a great boil.

@@simplewoodslife no blower just the filler cap on the drum on the bottom might be a 3" hole that air draws naturally through and i keep the coals away from it so it draws good air and i have a damper on the chimney pipe.

@@RedFowl9492 Have the same. Notice a few folks with blowers, but I've never had the need (or the volume to move) so far.

It was indeed! Weather though - just bonkers. Speaking with another fella who's totally killing it this year (instagram.com/red_fowler_outdoors/) and he's around 2 1/2 to 3 hours from me, and his sap is flowing like gangbusters.. Tomorrow is supposed to warm up, so we'll see then!

Oh man I hope not... but nothing would surprise me this year. A few hours down the way and I hear sap is flowing like water from a tap, but we're just stuck in a quasi-limbo it seems. Bitter cold again today, but supposed to warm up tomorrow, so hopefully we'll have something in the buckets and can fire up the evaporator! Weather out your way still winter at all? Saw you doing some ice-road trucking there a few days back ☃️

That sounds like a great setup. I'd built our first cinderblock evaporator in February, and while I did my best to melt the snow and level the base, she went wonky as all get out when the spring came and my plumb and level became leaning towers 😆Do like the idea of the copper pipe, have watched a few setups where it's pulling from a warmer tray situated way up high on a shelf, wraps around the stack a number of times before dripping into the tray (I suppose warming it a load on the way), but am intrigued by yours. If you want to send a photo, you can DM me on Instagram (instagram.com/simplewoodslife/) or email me at simplewoodslife@gmail.com - thanks for touching base! 🍁

Glad you liked it! Totally agree given the small-batch side of things. Plus, with the weather being soooooo weird this year, we don't have our usual mound of snow to store all the sap buckets for boiling and keep cool, so the ice is acting double duty while the pails are on the cold garage floor; keeping everything from spoiling. I don't mind boiling a touch longer, and we always get our Brix levels to the right amount in the end. Now if I was dealing with 1000 litres, I'd sure be looking to slice some time off the process, but I'm not 😂 😂

OMG that's a GENIUS suggestion, thank you! ☕☕☕ I know what I'm trying tomorrow!

Totally agree with you. Maybe if this was a professional setup, and we were in it for income my thoughts would change, but as a small-batch home-made product that adorns our pancakes and baking, syrup is the only goal. Whether I have to boil an extra slot of time is neither here nor there for me vs. the potential of losing sap by thinking it was ice.

He put a nice big setup together eh? Watched that episode when they made that pan and realized I'm a long way off with my little buffet racks lol. But yeah, I'm not throwing the ice out any time soon 🥶 Maybe you could tap the trees and sell the sap? Could be a new business venture 🤔 "do-it-yourself maple syrup" - sell the sap and a pack of matches 🤣

I don't believe maple syrup freezes, but I know sap does. I've never seen it happen, but believe it can shatter a tree something fierce if it's flowing and then a snap freeze occurs. 😲