Spring Harvest 2017

[Amber Gold]

Hey All,

First post of the 2017 season. Got the sugarhouse picked up and evap. setup over Christmas break. Been spending the last few weekends getting the woods tuned in preparation for the season. Replaced the last of the drops, so all drops are now a season old or brand new. Woods faired the off-season overall. I had a huge two trunk sugar maple lose one of it's trunks directly on top of a mainline. I spent two hours cleaning that up alone. I had some weird animal chews that I hadn't seen before. Not squirrels. Something with bigger teeth because it was biting through the tubing. No changes in the sugarhouse or woods this year. Things operate pretty smoothly and hoping to keep it that way. Our woods should still be about 900 taps plus whatever sap we can buy in...more the merrier.

I'll be tapping this weekend and should be able to get all of the taps installed in the two days. The following weekend will be turning the vac. on and checking the system over and hoping all's good. If it's warm enough, we'll get the RO machine going and the membrane flushed. For what it's worth, the long range forecast is showing a warm-up not long afterwards.

Here's to a good season everyone!

[Dill]

I was just going to call you and see what your tapping plan was. I think we are in for a cold turn. But actually after a weird Jan, I'd say the weather is back to normal.

[Russell Lampron]

Hey Josh, Good luck with the new season. I was going to ask i you had heard from Alden but see that he replied here.

Hey Alden, How's your new woods coming along?

[red maples]

Hey Josh good luck with the season.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Josh,

Maybe racoons. I had one woods I probably had 100,000 holes in 300 taps. I've been trapping them with dog proof paw traps and caught 10 of them in last month. I have some damage on 2 of my other 4 properties but it has been light on both of them.

[antelope76]

Porcupines love plastic too.

[BAP]

Porcupines will do a lot of damage to tubing and the tree they live in.

[red maples]

really porcupines? I never even thought of that. I have a fisher in my woods but I only see it once in a while usually during hunting season in the fall so I don;t have many porcupines here. but Squirrels... geez. I shot 12 greys this year and I still have more the red squirrels are difficult to get. smaller and smarter spook easier.

porcupines are easy to find in the winter. they are usually by a hemlock or pine stand. once the snow is a bit older with no new snow for a few days look for a well worn path from a hollow tree or old stump or log towards a hemlock and (they love to eat hemlock leaves in winter) and you may find a few quills if so then that might be your culprit.

[Amber Gold]

I hadn't considered porcupine or coons. I've probably had to replace a 6-8 lateral lines because of them and another dozen or so drop lines...Found more today.

Got about 150 tapped today. Hoping tomorrow to finish that mainline (230 total) and another (250) tomorrow and be more productive. Getting the mainlines fine that are the coldest is my idea.

Last weekend we barely had any snow, so I was thinking I'd get all tapping done in a weekend....guess not.

[Dill]

Yup, we are going to spend at least a month on snowshoes. Wasn't too bad today but add in tonights storm and wensday and its going to get deep. We ended up with ice on the lines after yesterday's 3 inches. I was cutting in drops this morning but the 2 handed tool kept icing up.

[Dill]

I talked to Josh midday yesterday. He's tapping steady and was seeing sap flow around noon. I suspect he's already on snowshoes this morning.

[Russell Lampron]

I was able to tap here without snowshoes. There were a couple of times that I went in over my knees but overall it wasn't bad without snowshoes.

[Dill]

You could practically watch the snow melt here. I'm seeing stuff that didn't exist above the snowline a couple hours ago, but I still need shoes. The dog just isn't sinking out of sight now.

[red maples]

yeah need snow shoes here too. at least since its heavier and wet now you don;t sink in as much.

[Amber Gold]

Busy weekend, so just getting back on trader. No snowshoes for me. Generally knees or below, so I'd just as soon not deal with the big feet.

It's been a frustrating long weekend for sure. Saturday went well and got another big mainline tapped in, which brought my total to around 700. The plan for Sunday was to get the vac. pump and releaser going in the morning and finishing tapping in the afternoon. I filled the stock tank with water and found it was full of leaks. Ran to a friend's and borrowed a tank. Got that set up. Got the pump going and found the float switch wasn't working on the releaser. Got that working and found it wasn't tripping properly and called it a day. Monday, I found the two floats were full of water, so I ran home drilled them out, and dropped the weight down, but not enough. I have a complete float switch and float setup on overnight from Lapierre for delivery today. I'll replace the entire float assembly tonight.

Last night, I reduced the weight of the floats some more, and it was working this morning, but we'll see if it continues to do so...pretty sure I haven't found all of the leaks.

Downside is I lost Sunday through Tuesday's sap runs. Hopefully all's good for tomorrow, and I can try to find time to tap the remaining 150+ before the weekend. There's about 725-750 taps in now, and I was pulling 22"+ of vac by the end of yesterday. The season can't get much worse from here, can it?

[Maplewalnut]

Josh- my year so far has been challenging also with RO and releaser leaks and failures. Looking for a weather window to rip my one RO post apart to run to VT for rebuild of a ceramic gasket. Keep plugging away, you'll get it figured out.

Mike

[Amber Gold]

Thanks Mike. This is definitely the roughest start to a season I've ever had. What burns me is the 3 lost days of sap production. A rush trip to VT for that...bummer. You keep plugging away too...can't get any worse, right.

I put the RO together last night and flushing the membrane tonight, so hopefully that goes well.

Forgot animal chews. The squirrels have been on a feeding frenzy since last season. Worst season for animal damage too.

[red maples]

Wow that is a bad start... sorry man!!!

lots of animal damage all over this year I am hoping next year is better since I got rid of so many squirrels this fall. I am just a little behind. so I don;t feel too bad but off to the woods now.

[Amber Gold]

Yesterday I called Lapierre to troubleshoot the float issue. Got right to their releaser dept. and talked through the issues. He was very helpful. When I realized I needed a new float setup, I called them back at 3:35 and they overnighted what I needed and it was here before noon today. Lapierre has always been helpful when I've needed them.

Got home from work tonight, swapped out the float switch and floats. I stayed there long enough to watch it run through two full cycles with no issues. Back in business!!!

[Russell Lampron]

Sorry to hear about all of the problems Josh. Once you get the bugs worked out and the leaks under control it should be smooth sailing.

As for me I wish I could have been tapped in before last weekend but got tapped in by Sunday afternoon. It took me less time than ever to get my vacuum leaks fixed and vacuum to 26" even though there was a lot of squirrel damage. My first boil went well too. I got the evaporator sweetened and made 3 gallons of golden syrup last night.

[Amber Gold]

Thankfully, the sugarhouse end of things went off without a hitch last night. Brought home two loads of sap (951 gal) and concentrated it to 15.5%...I wasn't planning on going that high, but kinda forgot about it. Filled the evap and had about 50 gallons leftover. I was making syrup in about 1.5 hrs and pulled off about 3 gallons before it was time to shut 'er down. As usual when sweetening the pans, ran into an issue where a gradient wasn't established, so the syrup pan temps started crawling up, but ladled some stuff over to cool it down a bit.

Releaser worked good all day. It was below freezing by 10pm last night, so it should run good today.

Vac.'s holding steady at 23.5" yesterday, and the pump deadheads at 26.5", so there's room for improvement. Tapping in the last 150+ Saturday morning, and then time to tighten things up.

[Amber Gold]

Temps are downright balmy! Sap's moving, but not much. Last night's low was an awesome 40F. Yesterday, I hauled a load home and left some in the tank. RS dropped off about 300 gallons. Held it over to boil everything tonight.

Got a surprise last night when I picked up my load and checked on the pump shed and smelled an electrical smell. I found the vac. pump wall/plug connection had melted...oops. Hard wired it, so that problem's fixed...got lucky there.

Forgot to mention that first run of sap tested at 1.6%...not promising for the season to start out that low.

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

I couldn't believe out of my 250 taps I only got 175 yesterday with the temps, im sure nothing is flowing today, haven't checked yet.

Good luck and have a good season!

[Russell Lampron]

Sounds like you had a close call with the electrical outlet. It would have sucked to have your pump house burn down. The temps look like they are going to be more normal next week. I sure hope so because I am getting sap here but not much.

As for the sap sugar content I think it will get better. I never check mine but my sap to syrup ratio was about 50 to 1 last night which is about normal.

[Dill]

You got real lucky there. It was almost hot out yesterday.

[red maples]

well at least the sugarhouse is going well... and if thats the most of your issues you should be alright for the season!!! fingers crossed!!!

[Amber Gold]

Yeah, I agree, real lucky with that one. Here's what I realized. All the expensive stuff is in the sugarhouse, but all the expensive losses are in the woods. I figure the $150 part cost me over $3000 in lost syrup.

Saturday was walking in the woods. Got the three tapped mainlines tighter (24") and got another mainline tapped and walked. Brought home a load a sap, and boiled that, plus the load I carried over from Friday. Made like 20 gal of syrup. Season total's around 45 gal.

Sunday, got the final mainline tapped (just shy of 900 total) and walked the woods again. Vac's down to 22" for some reason and was running out of day. Hauled another load home, but saving it for Monday night's boil.

So, boiling Friday night and I see a drip out of the motor/H.P. pump mounting plate. Call up Kyle at H2O, and he says he'll be there Monday to swap out the HP pump...figures the shaft seal went. The machine's on its third season. I boil again Saturday night, and I think I found the source of the drip...leaking nipple thread. Need to take the fitting apart (easy to get to) and see if it fixes the problem. The machine's easy to use and performs well, and you can't beat service like that.

[Russell Lampron]

Yeah, I agree, real lucky with that one. Here's what I realized. All the expensive stuff is in the sugarhouse, but all the expensive losses are in the woods. I figure the $150 part cost me over $3000 in lost syrup.

You don't have to have much go wrong in the woods to take a huge loss in sap. Today while I was at work Richard came over to pump the tank in the woods and found that we only had 18" of vacuum. He found a lateral that had pulled apart and another one that had been chewed through. I don't know how much sap I didn't get because of that but it was coming in real good at 6:00.

[red maples]

How you doin' over there??? recover? from the earler issues? hope all is well!!!

[Dill]

I actually talked to him yesterday. So he's alive. I guess he was out in WI on business so he was glad it's been froze up. He also lost a seam on his truck tank but I think he found a new one.