May Journal

[Dennis H.]

Hey no May Journal yet? Come on guys!!

Syrup sales going really nice.
I am selling syrup at a CSA farm store. That is working out real nice.
Also taking maple coated peanuts to a sale this weekend. I am curious how well they will sale.
If they do well I will be taking some to a farmers market along with syrup.

Been doing some work related to sugar'in besides making coated nuts. Redoing a bathroom in my sugarhouse that I may just be using it for an RO room!
I got a bunch of trees lined up for next season that I will be putting on vac and I think that there will be no way to boil all that sap without an RO. I want to get a list of things that I will need so I can get my order in for the early ordering season is over.

[maple flats]

Having just sold my old pans I now anxiously wait for my new ones to be made. They were projected to be ready about 10/1, hopefully they meant 2012. Thor is the company.
On other fronts we are looking at design ideas to build an addition to the sugarhouse. I now have 16x24 and my current idea bumps one wall out 10' to make it 26 x 24 with an additional 10 x 10' off the end of the addition for a cold cellar down and a storage room up, with an outside stairway and freight elevator for bbls of syrup. I'm thinking all but the last 10 x 10 would be like the original, which is pole barn type, but the rest would be concrete block down and ? up. I think the cellar would only go about 3.5' below grade, the rest above because of the water table and drainage issues. I do not want to need a sump pump. I still need to finalize the plan before construction begins.
My next chore is to finish pulling taps in my last bush.
This summer I'm also adding 3800' of additional 1" mains, in 4 lines, 2 tied to the releaser and 2 going into the wet/dry conductors. I think I'll get about 4-500 more taps in this expansion but that is just a guess at this point in time. Even though I am always looking for SS tanks, I bought some IBC containers (cage totes) that may serve as in woods storage until I find the SS tank(s) needed. I now have about 850 gal and I will eventually have about 2000-2400 taps so I want up to 5000 gal storage when done.

[red maples]

Well all ready for some more layer chicks coming from Ohio today. Got the call from the post office at 8:00 am and she said there was no movement in the box...uh oh!!! picked em up and they are all dead :( called the company and left a message. The shorted me 1 bird anyway. 16 pick your own rare breed pullets(females) not cheap!!!!

[Revi]

The black flies are back at our woodlot. It keeps me moving when I walk up there! It seems nice and wet, so the leaves have plenty of moisture to work with.

I always get nervous when I see dead branches, but with some maples it's a natural part of what they are doing. The bottom branches die off, and some of the ones that went out too far do too I've noticed. They like to keep a tight crown.

[jmayerl]

Well it's may and I'm not doing a lot of maple stuff. Dropped off the flue pan at Smokey Lake yesterday so he can make that sweet new finish pan mate up perfectly. Got the deck done in the back yard and now we have a few pallets of stone and retaining wall to lay out.

[maple flats]

I got an email from Thor Evaporator. My custom pans are ready after just 2 weeks time. They projected mid September to early October, but they were ready Mid May. Now I've got to proceed with getting my enhanced Drivers license (or passport, haven't decided for sure), I want to drive up and get them. I asked if waiting til July would be an issue, they seemed to have no problem with that.
Been doing more crop/gardening work than maple. This is a real busy time of year here.

[sjdoyon]

Just finished running 22 new 1" main lines during the month of May and hope to get another 1,800-2,000 taps out of it. Plan is to get the 5/16" lines up this summer on the weekends.

[SevenCreeksSap]

We took a little time to plant a small garden and do some fishing, but better start thinking ahead. my wifes friend told us they had a pile of wood we could have , so went there and its a pile of stuff from them tearing down a mobile home. been hauling that on weekends and about 6 trailer loads of kiln dried 2x2 and 2x6 stuff. pretty clean except all the nails and joiners. that will all come out in the burning. probably a good cord of dry wood to fire with.

Also have a office trailer by our sap shack that I'm going to move behind it, so cutting down about 8-10 locust and elm. gotta get that all split so it can dry, but most of the elm is already dead. Next safety bonus I get is going for tubing to stretch out the mainline another 500 ft.

[maple2]

went to a farm auction,sat,expecting to buy a 300gal bulk tank for 3-$500. it sold for $1450! an old sp11 went for $360. thinking of sending all my stainless tanks to auction and buying plastic

[Dennis H.]

I just picked up a 600gal tank for $625. It is one of the leakers that he had, wouldn't hold freon. If it was a good tank for cooling it would have run well into the 2K's
I was looking for something in the 400 gal range but he told me that anything less than 400 gals are in high demand because of all the people how are raising goats for milk.
Right now tanks in the 400-1000 are the ones that do not sell that fast. I guess to big for the goat milkers and to small for the cow milkers.

[sugarsand]

We"re also on the hunt for cheap used bulk tanks. With scrap metal prices so high most bulk tanks don"t have a chance to make to the sugar bush.

sugarsand

[Sugarmaker]

Hi,
Have been busy like everyone else. some highlights after a good maple season.
Just got a new pup her name is Maggie she is 13 weeks old, Golden Retriever.
Getting real close to owning a antique tractor, a 1953 Ford Jubilee.
Restored a trailer to haul wood.
Wood lot behind or house has been clear cut.
Have 10 bundles of maple slab wood for making syrup in the next year or so.
Planted a good size garden and turned over some ground 60 feet x 90 feet for sweet corn and pumpkins.
Move the daughter and son-in-law to withing 5 miles of us on a big farm.
Keeping busy with Cub projects, have 1971 model 147 and 5 implements ready for show this summer.

Hope things are good in Maple land.
Regards,
Chris

[PATheron]

Busy down here too since season. One boy in a shooting team that shoots two or three days a week. Been busy with him. They shoot bow, muzzleloader, shotgun and 22. Pretty neat deal. All wrapped up from this years season other than having to jug a barrell of syrup for myself. Got permission to tap a lot more trees on my furthest sugarbush this year and have been working on that with my boys. Have about 500 new taps hooked up already just need to do mainline connections and drops. Theres probly a 1000 more I can get but probly wont do all them this year. Just running lines to the nicest for now. Gonna quit running new ones pretty soon and go back through my existiing system and finetune somethings. Most of my tubing is 5 years old now and I like to keep up with the maintainance and keep it working good. Thats about it. Hope everyone having a good summer. Sounds like next couple winters going to be extra cold. Probly have lots of time to tap in and hook up new trees and such. Theyre predicting old fashion winters next three years like we had in the seventys. Might be easier that way with more normal seasons and not starting in January and going so long like it has been lately. Theron

[ennismaple]

Theron - Good to hear from you again! I was afraid you'd fallen off the face of the earth... or gotten sucked into a Zero tank!

Sales have been very strong this year - I think because people know there was a bad harvest this year and they're stocking up. Some of our new wholesale customers have been doing very well with sales too. It won't be hard to retail/wholesale every drop we made this year!

I've been to one farmer's market so far and sales were strong. i have a friend's teenage daughter trained to work the booth for me so that should free up some time on Saturdays to get other things done.

The Beast got a good bath on Sunday. After soaking it in sap for 10 weeks it was pretty ripe in the sugar camp. A few hours of rinsing, pressure washing and scrubbing later it looks as good as new - and smells better too!

The one upside of the poor season is there's not much wood to cut and split this year. We've had a few trees come down in the last couple of months plus what we cut last winter should be more than enough.

We've got our plans in place to add another 200-300 taps in our new bush. The taps simply add on to the end of an existing mainline and we already have the mainline and tanks so it's just a matter of laying out the mainlines and stretching 5/16" tubing.

[Revi]

I planted a small garden and was going to fill the woodshed until a robin made a nest on it. Had to wait until the fledglings had left the nest before getting next year's wood. My wife decided to feed them some worms, and had one dangling over one of the chicks' mouth. The mother and father robin went ballistic. They are gone now, so I guess I have no excuse not to get wood.

[GeneralStark]

I planted a small garden and was going to fill the woodshed until a robin made a nest on it. Had to wait until the fledglings had left the nest before getting next year's wood. My wife decided to feed them some worms, and had one dangling over one of the chicks' mouth. The mother and father robin went ballistic. They are gone now, so I guess I have no excuse not to get wood.

The same thing has happened here the last two years. Last year they had two sets of chicks, the second right after the first and they kept me out of the woodshed for several weeks.

[220 maple]

Went to Brandonburg, Kentucky over the holiday weekend, neice's wedding. Visited a family near there that makes syrup, they said they did real well considering the weather wasn't perfect for making syrup. Made and sold several pints, and are looking foward to next spring since they will have more help since their daughter and son in law have moved next door.

Mark 220 Maple

[PATheron]

Marty- Havent been accidently sucked through the sap lines. I get on and check things out time to time. Just Usually keep to myself till season then I get on and get everyone pumped up. Theron