Cal,

Last year is the first year in 30 years or so we have tapped trees. We used to boil on a 8x12 black pan over an arch right out in the open. All bucket taps of course. A gentleman who buys hay from me tapped about 120 taps in one parcel and we tapped another 100 or so ourselves for the grandkids to have something to do. Those taps we had my sons best friend boil in his sugar house. We ended up with enough syrup to satisfy the family needs plus a few bucks. I gathered last spring with my 420 JD with a set of chains on. We would have tapped a few more but the snow level made it more wear and tear on the 420 than it was worth. Besides it was just enough trees to get the grandkids into the process. We used a tank on the back end of an old manure spreader. Worked well. Way back when we used the OC-4 to gather with because the crawler didn't tear up the muddy meadows the way a wheel tractor did. Worked quite well. If it is just snow I am contending with I can use the 1955. If it gets muddy, I'll use the OC-4. I intend to tap a few more trees this year. last year was a very good year in this area. We will probably tap more trees and not get much more yeild. Nobody I know has done much here yet as far as tapping. But with the mild winter, I expect our trees will start running a bit earlier this year. On some years we start making syrup as early as mid feb., but that is uncommon. Usually early march things get going. Last year we made more syrup in April than March. All of the trees we have tapped so far are within walking distance of one road or another.