Woodchuck's Blog- Cabot

[wdchuck]

Well, it's not really a blog- just thought I'd put it up that way so some friends from around the country and overseas can check in every now and then. Today is the official start of tapping. I'll work alone today, help is coming tomorrow in the form of my pal Jeff (your real friends are the ones who will trudge around in waist deedp snow all day with you!- Thanks again Jeff!!) On Monday my brother is coming to help finish. Should be done by Wednesday.....Maybe. The snow is deep- I had one guy tell me that in his woods with one guy drilling and one guy pounding spouts they did 1000 in a day. His snow must have a real nice crust- I'm not so optimistic!

[wdchuck]

Now wasn't that special! Tapping started out ok, nice dry snow and only going in about 6 inches. Within an hour things started to melt and the wet snow was sticking to the drier snow underneath and building up on the bottom of the snowshoes. Stayed that way most of the day. Around 5:30 I was almost out of gas and the light rain wasn't getting any lighter, so i bagged it for another day. Got some silicon spray and doused the snowshoes- we'll see how that works. Anyway, I'm drinking my a.m. coffee before Jeff gets here and we'll go at it again. Should be a lot less monotonous as well as faster with Jeff pounding spouts.

[wdchuck]

Whaddayaknow, things actually went according to plan. Jeff and I got the middle of the near side of the woods, and on Monday my brother and I finished off the top and then went over to the far side and knocked out most of that before calling it a day. Tuesday we finished up before lunch and I went hunting for leaks ( found plenty-**** deer!) Today I repaired all the leaks on the near side and then My Dad and I got the Vacuum system in place on the far side.No time to fire it up- the squeeze bulb on the gas tank was split, so I called it a day. The other pump is going as I type and running pretty well. Still, I dont think we'll boil before this cool down thats coming for the weekend. I dont mind having some ice in the tanks to keep things as cool as possible. Sugar content is still pretty low, snow is still tight around the trees, no worrys. Hows everybody elses sugar content running?- hopefully this years will be better than last.

[wdchuck]

Found all the leaks on the far side of the woods on Thursday afternoon. No squirrel problems- just deer bites. Any body like venison? Everything's all set except for the sugarhouse, which I'll take care of on Monday. Sometime this week I've got to do a syrup delivery to our 3 supermarket's- (we wholesale) Aaaaah, payday! Probably will deal with that on Tuesday or Wednesday, before we get busy with actually making the stuff. Added bonus- I picked up a new customer. An old college buddy of mine opened a BBQ restauarnt, so I sell him 2 Gals of "B" every 3 weeks. I dont make much money off him, but **** the lunch is good!

[wdchuck]

A few more things to do.......Set up and clean out the sugarhouse tomorrow. A couple of valves to put in the mainlines to help with washing. Wash the tanks as soon as it warms up. Snowmobile needs a primer bulb I pirated to use on the motor that runs Vac system #2. Syrup delivery will be on Wednesday. Plenty of waiting to do for a warmup................

[wdchuck]

Cleaned out some of the junk my father "stored" in the sugarhouse today. Before May we're gonna have a day to hoe the corner room out! Cleaned out a few barrells, then went to Goodrich's for containers and supplies. Did some more waiting for the warmup............

[wdchuck]

Got vac station#2 straightened out. Cleaned out a couple tanks. Loaded the van to deliver syrup. It'll br interesting to see how sales go this time. Lower $ due to folks holding off to buy some from the neighbor who makes a few gallons? We'll see...........Still waiting for warmup, this is one of those "be careful what you wish for" situations.

[wdchuck]

Pretty typical day, saleswise- $2100. The highlight was, of course, lunch! Still not very warm, but tomorrow's another story. Gotta clean a couple more tanks, put up the smokestack, get the RO ready, and amongst all that, keep 2 vacuum systems running.

[wdchuck]

Shakedown day- Got the last 2 tanks all clean then went to vac station #2 and it had quit! Started right up again, ran fine. Later in the afternoon, it was idle again. Found the problem, I think- an air leak in the squeeze bulb. Then it was RO time. Everything went fine,, until I fired it up, of course. Had a pretty good leak around the vessel's top O-ring, so I tore it apart and put it back together, and whaddayaknow, no leak! Must've been pinched in there. Made some permeate out of water and used that to give the membrane a thorough rinse. Tomorrow, I've got to sort through all the tools lieing around, set up the filter press and start ROing what sap my Dad hauls home. It's not supposed to freeze until just before sunrise, so the run should be pretty long. (It's not running particularly hard so far.)I'd like about 2000 gals to fire up. Weather looks pretty good for a while!

[wdchuck]

Just got back from a check on the vacuum pumps- everything's A-OK. Sap still flowing- it was supposed to freeze up by now............We boiled on Friday, went through 2000 gallons in about 5 hours from throwing the match to cleanup. (Love that RO machine!) SHould do the same tomorrow, but it looks like we'll have more sap to deal with this time. Sugar content still dissapointing. Maybe it's still early in the season or maybe that's just the way it's gonna be this year!

[wdchuck]

We've beem BUSY! 2000 to 2800 gals a day through the sugarhouse! Low sugar content, Dk A syrup. No mechanical breakdowns. Gone through about 4-5 cords of wood- ****, I love that RO machine! Gotta go- sap's gonna run again...........

[wdchuck]

Did a clean-up boil on 800 gals of sap today that accumulated in 2 days. Sugar content may have gone up, but I'm not 100% sure as I didnt test it. It's been 1.5% all along, so why bother. Seems like sugaring season is never without it's mechanical issues- last week it was the motor on the filter press. Quickly replaced by my next door neighbor who does plumbing and heating and had a 1/2 hp blower motor in stock. On Sunday, my old college pal Pat came by for a visit- he's a very knowledgeable motorhead, and he mentioned that the Tanaka sap pump sounded kinda lean. 3 hours later it bought the farm. We were rescued this time by Glen Goodrich who happened to have a 2" 4 hp Honda pump for $300 bucks. A good deal we thought and we need to get a bigger pump sometime anyway, so we closed that deal in a hurry. Thanks go out to Glen and kudos to Pat, who gets the award for attentiveness. The season is going well, so far. Lotsa sap, not much sugar in it, but the yield is turning out OK. It's all about the weather.

[powerdub]

Don't feel bad, I am about $1500.00 into repairs myself. If it is not one thing its another.

[wdchuck]

Not feeling too bad about the breakdowns- only about $450. Could be better, Could be a lot worse! Sap just barely started to trickle for a couple hours yesterday afternoon, but only just barely. Should warm up enough today to get things started. Looks like things will be going strong here until about the 22nd, then a MAJOR warmup. Sounds good to me! Delivered syrup yesterday-$2100!!

[Russell Lampron]

You guys aren't alone. I have almost $400 in repairs to my RO machine. If I count the new stack that I had to buy for my evaporator before the season started as a break down that was over $400. After some problems at the beginning of the season things have fallen into a nice pattern around here and the sap just keeps flowing.

Russ

[wdchuck]

Yesterday was cool, windy, and cloudy, so things didnt thaw out much. Just the same, sap ran a little in the afternoon, so we boiled that plus the 600 gals that has been hanging around since last Thursday's snowstorm. Today is bright and sunny- temos should be above 40, so looks like a great day for sapflow- at least those shady sections of the woods should have enough warm temps to finally thaw out!

[wdchuck]

Glad I made use of that sunshine yesterday- went out hunting for vacuum leaks and found some- 2 laterals pulled apart, and a deer bite. Anybody who wants to come hunt in our sugarwoods next November is welcome to it!.........Sap ran Ok yesterday, so-so today during yet another snowstorm. Had to shut down one pump late afternoon- things froze up(high temp 35) and flooded the sp-22 with sap. Those sure are bulletproof vacuum pumps!......I got it flushed out and will go refill it with oil tomorrow and get the ice out of the intake pipe. ......On the brighter side, we boiled yesterday's sap and what it ran today and made about 15 gals of syrup that started with not so great flavored, and finished with dkA.

[wdchuck]

The latest snowfall wound down today and when things finally thawed a bit we got a decent sap run. More of the same expected tomorrow, so we'll boil later in the day, and let whatever happens with the next storm happen on Sunday\Monday. Probably have quite a bit of sap to deal with by then

[wdchuck]

Boiled yesterday and wouldnt have believed it if I hadnt done it myself, but the grade went from dark up to really nice medium. We skipped boiling today- hauled some sap home and cleaned a tank out. Got a couple minor chores done in the sugarhouse. Hopefully, we get a bit more sap and the snow's not too deep and we'll boil again tomorrow.

[wdchuck]

The forecast snow didnt happen as forecast- instead we got a lot of wind-scary stuff! Softwood trees are down all over the place. On the way to daycare, had to turn around and come back later cuz the road was blocked. By late afternoon, 3 more 'leaners' were hanging over the road. ........Had a top of a big pine fall on a mainline that was 16' in the air and brought it right to the ground! While my Dad and I were fixing that whole mess, we could hear and see 3 other firs come down around us. That was about where I decided to cancel the afternoon's festivities and fix all the problems when the wind dies down tomorrow...............And so, to make a long story short, I'm pretty sure based on how the sap flows into the releasers and the volume of it (not much) that I've got some problems in the woods. Hope it's just tubing and not smashed-to-bits PVC manifolds. .......No freeze last night either, so things didnt run so well. Just a bit more sap and we'll boil what we have on hand, so wish me luck with leak patrol!

[tapper]

Good Luck wdchuck! Hope you dont have too much damage there. Some days its just better to not be in the woods.

[Pete33Vt]

Same thing up here. Really scary wind, trees down all over. Sap was coming into relaser so-so. But took a ride around with the four wheeler, and found quite a few trees and limbs down. Hand one line down and the broken end was hanging about 1 inch from a large water hole. I tasted all my sap to make sure it was sap not water. Test was down but still sap. Had to cut and cap three lines. Really scary getting this done with wind whipping and trees falling. Boiling everything in today then thats it. See what happens.
Stay safe.

[wdchuck]

Thanks guys! ...............But wasn't that fun in the woods today? Correct answer is 'no'.............No manifolds smashed, just tubing and mainlines. LOTS of tubing disconnected from falling tree parts. One section of mainline flattened complete with broken wire. Only lost 2 maples and they were not terribly healthy anyway. A few big firs came down around 'the swamp', so we'll get free 2x4's out of the deal anyway. (Portable sawmills are great- you've always got lumber on hand and lots of really cheap sugarwood!) All in all things could've been worse. The weather wasnt so great and I did manage to get the ATV stuck 3 or 4 times. Cant believe there's still enough snow to get stuck in! ..............Finally got around to boiling- went through 1000 gallons, home by 8 pm. Made medium again-go figure!

[wdchuck]

No sap ran yesterday, so I went to do some work at my day job. Finished up early and went into the woods to install some valves in the mainlines to make washing go easier. It just barely froze here at my house, maybe/maybe not out in the woods. Friday and Saturday look like good bets so hopefully we squeeze out a couple more days.