China has several thousand people employed on Weather Modification projects that might be messing our weather up and sending all the bad stuff to California and New England (Unintentionally of course!) Not sure if that is good or not, but its February 17 and here is is 62F and windy, no rain, no snow.
Goodness! (Just for fun here!) Give Beau some buckets and maple taps!!
Box elder trees can be tapped for maple syrup and they grow all over the midwest, Missouri, and Southern Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana! (Trap the bugs and feed them to your chickens!!) :O (I think you know this, but others may not!!)
https://heatherearles.com/making-syrup-from-boxelder/
SNIP.........Legge starts tapping his boxelder trees about the second week in March as freezing temperatures are needed at night and warm temperatures are needed during the day to help the flowing or pumping process of the sap. Then once the buds start to come out, it’s time to leave the tree be.
When drilling into a boxelder tree, use a 5/16 bit and drill 1 1/2 inches deep and about 2 1/2 to 3 feet from the base’s bottom. If you drill into the same tree the previous year, move your tap over 6 inches and continue the same method each year following. Tap into the tree until it bounces. This means you have a good seal. The tap stays in day and night.
Once your tap is in, you need some kind of line where your syrup can go. If you plan on tapping over 50 trees, you may want to set up a system where the taps are connected and flow into one large tank or container. However, if you are tapping less than 50, Legge’s method works ...(see link for entire article!)
If you grow some sorghum in the summer you can use the Maple Syrup cooking pan to reduce your Sorghum Squeezings too!
Yes, he’s tapped them - but we have plenty of REAL Maple trees, and the bugs use the Box Elders for something - probably BREEDING into the Zillions - so they can leave.
With no snow cover and now this crazy warm up, he and his ‘Sugar Mentor’ are not predicting a good sap season here by us. :(