Cooking at the Shak on Good Friday

We're committing to cooking tomorrow night at the Shak, Fri 3/30.....even though as of right now we don't have any sap on-hand in the tanks. We're hopeful what we collect in the woods tomorrow afternoon (which is a few days worth) will be enough to be making some syrup. If not, we'll fake it for Ellen!!

2018 cooking debut at the Shak tonight!

We had alot of folks hoping to see some action at the Sugar Shak over the weekend, but the trees didn’t perform.... But today they did! Heading back to the Shak with about 700 gallons. We’ll get the stove going for the first time this season tonight, and the week looks promising!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

It was a fun afternoon! We tapped the 70 trees at home....and they’re running! And then we ran out to the woods and tapped 200...they’re running too! Yippee!! The season has begun! We’ll finish tapping tomorrow morning to catch the afternoon run. And the 15-day forecast looks awesome! No surprise 70-degree temps to spoil the season like we’ve experienced the last two years. Enjoy your saturday night!

Neighboring trees run first

We're 100% ready to tap, but we're waiting for a message from our 'neighbors' that their trees are running before we actually put our taps in.
Q: Why do theirs run first?
A: Their trees are on a Southeast facing slope with lighter soils that tend to warm-up faster than our woods which has heavier soils and the slopes run down to the North. Their trees are showing spots of grass around the base of the tree where snow has melted away. Our trees are still 'way deep in snow.'
Stay tuned......

Kick'n-Off the 2018 Maple Season

We're readying ourselves for what we hope to be a great Maple Syrup harvest in 2018. The woods definitely experienced a 'real Minnesota winter' with lots of snow left in the woods yet and a good 15" of frost where we're tapping. We've got our buckets and taps set by each tree and are hopeful to actually tap the trees later this week......Weds/Thurs. Reminder.....the trees run best when temps freeze at night and reach 40-45 by noon. This coming Sat/Sun is forecasted to be 46/47 with several days next week above 40 and rain/snow moving in which helps the ground thaw and get things moving. Tis the Season!!