July journal

[jimsudz]

Just getting wood put up.Going to my sons ball games. Mowing lawn between rain drops. Going up to the Adirondack'a to do some camping.

[heus]

I have a huge amount of cleanup to do after a storm last week took out 8 big maples in one spot of my woods and 2 more in another spot.

[sjdoyon]

Removing a 1 1/4" wet line and replacing with a 2" line (approximately 900ft), then reusing the 1 1/4" line and running it into the upper most section of our sugarbush. Should take most of the weekends this month.

[maple flats]

I just converted my gas RO over to electric. I also have updated some wiring in the sugarhouse. After wiring theRO circuit, I started changing some things that were rather crude, such as the lighting, I had 2 strings of florescent lights, each string was just on a cord and I had to plug each in for lights, now I just turn on 2 switches just inside the door. Modern convenience you know?
We have had far too much rain lately. The lower 1/3 of my city was flooded, the worst in recorded history, late last week. Much of the City is still blocked off and the water is still in flood stage in many parts. I was lucky, things are real soggy, but while my sump pump has been running, my cellar floor is still dry. It has again rained almost all day, and about 90 minutes the aftrnoon were an absolute downpour. I just hope the poor people whose homes are still flooded don't get even more flooding. My SIL is in the Sheriff's department, mandatory 12 hr shifts. He says they were pumping 7 million gallons a day back into the creek for the past 3 days. Today more pumps arrived to help.

[tuckermtn]

1st weekend of summer farmers market last weekend. Not much produce for sale, too much rain here also- hay folks are almost 2 weeks behind. 1st order of the year for wedding favors so I need to get back in the sugarhouse to jug for the 1st time in 3 weeks.

waiting on power company to get a new service set up, but that will have to wait now till end of July when we get back from Newfoundland trip.

Been getting the unimog set up for our local 4th of July parade. made a platform off the back of the stainless tank so my daughters can ride in the back tossing hard maple candies and my wife and I can ride up in the cab. have some maple leaf garlands to deck it out the rig also. The theme is fairy tales, so we are going to make up our own- instead of "the goose that laid the golden egg", it going to be the "The tree that gave the golden syrup"...I know it's a stretch...

[maple flats]

Tucker Mountain, that sounds like a great idea, not a stretch.

[tuckermtn]

very hot 4th of July in the parade. Still a lot of fun pulling it all together...

[mapleack]

Spent the morning bottling 15 gal for a wholesale order, too hot for that! Fighting off a summer cold too!

[Bruce L]

Finished installing about 800' of mainline in the other bush yesterday, pretty humid and the more you sweat the less the muskoil worked for the bugs. Not sure about putting the rest of the laterals up for awhile, as this is a bush I will have to put up and take down, might be a little overzealous at stretching in the warm weather, won't fit for next spring then.

[PerryW]

since we're posting 4th of july parade photos....

this is the Woodsville NH parade yesterday w/ me on the Bass.

7892

Headed to the adirondacks on sunday for 2.5 weeks. bringing the canoe, and the bicycles. Plan of some camping and motelling

[silveradomaple]

Still waiting on my new arch to be built here. Have managed to get the woodpile up between the raindrops...well maybe not between them, as I have gotted soaked a few times. LOL. Anyways....Has anyone else had problems with Bill Mason getting things built on time from him? He promised me he'd have it built back in April, and at last contact with him (mid june) he had not even started on it. Getting VERY frustrated. Is my frustration warranted? or is this just how Bill is?

[SeanD]

I've never heard complaints about getting things from him on time like I have from other guys. Bill built my evaporator. I ordered it in the late summer with a loose deadline of having it done by the fall. He told me to call him in October. He said something to the effect that if it was not done by then, calling him would get the work to the top of the list. He delivered it in early December.

A lot of people like his stuff, so he's pretty busy. I suggest calling him regularly to get the status of your evaporator. The squeakiest wheel gets the oil.

Good luck,
Sean

[Tweegs]

This is our first year doing the Farmer’s market thing. 6 weeks into it and we’ve sold about half our stock. I’ll not again complain about making dark, it’s far and away been our best seller. Only two gallons left. The light gets picked up by the natural sweetener/pseudo organic/no carb/yoga practicing/minimally processed/vegan types, which is to say we don’t move much of it, but their money is green, too, and we’ll take it (though I seldom can resist twisting their tails some, especially the young-un’s who haven’t a clue about the lifestyle and are in it for the coolness factor).

Speaking of vegans, the fellow who built my shack just bought 88 acres of woodland 5 miles down the road. Didn’t want it to go to the developers, he says. I find that rather ironic, him being a builder and all. Obviously, there won’t be any hunting on the place, but there may be room for a few hundred taps. As long as I don’t twist his tail too much further (kind of looks like a sheep’s bend now), I might get access. I’ll let him think on it a spell, getting vacuum on my place is a priority and we’ll see what’s left in the budget after that.

[maple flats]

I also have far better sales in Dark Amber. In fact I have blended good tasting B and even C into lighter syrups to meet my DA sales needs the last 3 years.
I've been doing some wiring in the sugarhouse. Then I ran a drainage ditch to be tiled next week for a drain for my new addition. The trench had to go about 400' thru the woods to effectively drain at 4' below grade. The following year I plan to build a cold cellar addition to this year's construction with that drain dictating the cellar depth. Then I'll add sand (my ground is all sand under the top soil) to bring the back fill higher to help keep it cooler.