new sugar house

[super sappy]

My wife did a maple presentation for a bunch of kids at school today. when I walked in to the kitchen after work she said we need a bigger sugar house and evaporator to support tour groups. Someone wake me up I must be dreaming :D :D :D I hope she has the bug -ss

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

What a wife! :D :D :D

[Fred Henderson]

Guess I got me one of them wife's. 2 years ago she say we needed a bigger SH and we now got that. This year she said we need something that will boiler faster and we are getting that. Looks like its go to be a D&G 3x8 with hood and pre heater.

[Sugarmaker]

SS,
That's great.
I think your wife has the right idea. We could have made our sugarhouse just a little bigger for the World famous NW PA Tour and Taste open house every spring. We get a lot of nice remarks. Build It They Will Come!
Now you just need to pick out some plans or begin the design process.
I used the guide lines from some Maple literature. About 30 main things to do and it really helped to have kind of a checklist, so as not to forget some major item. Well send some picture as it comes together!

Chris

[sweetwoodmaple]

Ok, now for the wet blanket. :wink:

You fellas carry insurance in case someone does a face plant into the evaporator doors or slips on a bananna peel, etc?

[Sugarmaker]

SWM,
We carry liability year round on the business end of this at a million dollars of coverage. This runs about $100 per year. Might not be enough for that face plant but better than nothing. Yea just one of those things that we all need to think about when we have the public coming on our property. We did get this coverage several years for just the weekend event and it was like $12 for two days. But we have folks here all the time getting syrup so that really did not make sense.

Adam got this computer working well again, I guess the modem needed restarted. I can now spend more (Less?) time chatting with you folks.
Chris

[maplehound]

I get visiters all he time when I am boiling. This year I had 2 diffrent privet schools bring there 1'st grade classes out. I do admit that it gets crowded in my sugar house and we are planing on adding on. I have my sugar house in my back yard and I live on a main highway so I get alot of people noticing what I am doing. Some have even reported me to the fire dept. I don't always think that size is what counts though but what you do with it. I put a picture of my sugar house on every glass bottle that gets a hanging tag. It has become a symbol of my business along with a picture of a raccoon. ( we call our business Raccoon Run Maple Syrup)
SS, Just go for those tours!!! No matter how big you are the kids will love it. Be sure to include a taste test and maybe a piece of sugar candy. I also send each child home with a coloring book and a small ( 50ml or 100ml) bottle of syrup.
Ron

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Brian,

I have Farm Family and 1 million in liability on everything. This covers me even on my personal property and house and the property and sugarhouse which is 1/2 hour away. I also carry product liability which covers me for 1 million also. By having a farm policy, I also have a provision for employee coverage. This is even for volunteer unpaid help and there are lots of other little things included in the policy. I know it sounds like a lot, but for everything, it wasn't that much. I have my tractor covered and all my maple equipment and building also covered in it! :D

[super sappy]

My wife puts together these team building programs for kids and adults at our local corn maze.We were (She was) thinking of doing something like this around sugaring.At the corn maze people walk around in the corn field for a couple of hours and pay them money to do it.Oh man If I could get people out here to wash buckets and collect sap .....We did have a group from albany come this year. They were all foreign professionals learning english.The wife did a program with them.I just boiled with church clothes on and my hair combed. It was really cool when I fired they were all clicking pictures.They loved maple and cleaned me out of syrup. One lady came back a few days later and got more , 1 qt going to Georgia,Russia.Its real neat to watch someone get their first taste of syrup.Another lady from Egypt traded me a nip bottle for this pizza like thing she made.(real good ).When they came they provided a insurance certificate from their school. My insurance lady told me that in NYS this is all I need.She also had about $1000 of extra coverage for me to purchase.Some one may stop to buy Syrup and catch the BIRD FLU from one of those damb chickens.-ss