WEST RUPERT, Vt. — The season is in the midst of its second major sap run.

Sugarmakers across Ohio, the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast made a bunch more early syrup this past weekend through Monday.

“I’m close to a third of a crop already,” said Michael Lourie of Mountain Valley Maple Farm in West Rupert, Vt.

Lourie was already on his eighth boil of the season on Monday night and had made 960 gallons so far.

His first boil was on Feb. 3.

“Last year we didn’t make syrup until March 15,” Lourie said.

Lourie said that he had been taking in sap from nearby sugarmakers who hadn’t got their equipment ready for a season that started way early and very sudden.

In Greenwich, N.Y., sugarmakers John and Michele Reid were scrambling to get a brand new Lapierre 5x14 cross flow evaporator ready.  They boiled for the first time on it on Sunday afternoon and again on Monday, working out the various minor kinks that come with a new set-up.

Not everyone was ready to jump on the early runs.

Karen Sprague of Whitingham, Vt. said she and husband Martin were holding out on getting tapped until the forecast is more consistently warm.

“When you jump on those early runs you dry up at the end of the season,” she said on Tuesday.

Sprague said her best season was last year, when most of the syrup they made was in April.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, sugarmakers were also cruising with a quick early season.

Les Ober, who is a correspondent for The Maple News in the Buckeye State, reports that James Miller, a major sugarmaker in Middlefield, Ohio got 14,000 gallons of sap this weekend.

“Sap’s running good,” Ober said. 

Also in Ohio, Jim Timmons of Farview Farm in Burton, Ohio already had 800 gallons made as of Tuesday.  

He tapped the first week in January and got two blockbuster runs in February.

“This is shaping up to be a decent year,” Ober said.

February 2016