Waterfall Farm is located in the Alaska of North Carolina. Since we tapped on January 27th the temperature has stayed near or below freezing the entire time and it seems to be snowing all the time. The ground has remained covered with snow from one snowfall to the next.
The trees did manage a few small dribble-y runs on days when the temperature crept up above freezing. By Friday, February 5th there were about 250 gallons of icy sap collected in the tanks. It takes about 250 - 300 gallons of sap to prime or “sweeten” the pan and begin making syrup. We decided to go for it after nine days of sitting on our hands and the 2021 sugar season was officially underway. There wasn’t quite enough sap to make syrup but we got close. It smelled and looked like syrup when we ran out of sap but it wasn’t quite up to 66% sugar yet. We’ll have to hurry up and wait ‘till the next sap run. Despite another three inches of snow that fell last night on top of the couple of inches of refrozen slush that was still hanging around, we are anticipating a lot of sap runs this week as many days are forecast to move well into thawing temperatures during daylight hours.
A long time customer called this week to et us know that his wife had bought herself a waffle iron for her birthday and they were down to a bottle and a half of syrup. “When are you going to have syrup again?” We’ll keep you posted!
-Doug, Michael & Wheeler