JULY..Summer's here Journal

[mapleman3]

Hey folks, July 1st.. hard to believe, seems to come faster every year as I get older!! hope everyones 4th goes great, I'm hoping to have a tag sale this weekend, thinking of bottling up 10 gals worth of quarts a pints to put out and get some sales... curious to see how the bulk storage held up. Have a great weekend everyone :D

[Race]

Hi Jim,
Happy 4th to you as well. All the wood is cut , stacked and ready to go. In the near future I will forward some summer syrup shack pictures to you. Good luck to all.

Race in Wisconsin , 500 + buckets all washed and waiting for March.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Also, happy 4th to all! :D I am hoping to get over on Monday as I am off and work on some tubing and other items that I have to do. Sure have a lot to do and time is getting short as it is just over 3 months till hunting season.

Good luck and I hope everyone's summer is going good and lets hear some progress and plans that everyone has for next year! :D

[Al]

Happy 4th to you all!! :D Been real busy lately. Warren fell off his bike and broke his elbow. :( Still haven't gotten to the addition yet but hopefully will soon.
Have a great summer

[mapleman3]

whew what a beautiful start to the weekend !! picked up a yard of stone today and spread it down where the sap tanks are going, my wife weeded there so we figured do it now and put the other tank in so the weeds wont come back. so now both my 300 gal ss tanks are set in their permanent spot, now in the fall I will build the saphouse around them.
I'm curious what you all sell your grade B quarts for? I have a few gallons bottled up and will put them out in the tag sale tommorrow. $10 ea ?? maybe I'll have a sample jug ready if folks want to taste :)

[Al]

Up hear it go's from 7-10 dollers. One person I saw did an interesting thing with his B grade. He put recipes with the bottles,Baked Beans, sweet carrots and some meat recipes also. Most people up here use B for cooking. Glad to hear your getting your tanks set up and ready to go. Looks like I'll be doing the catch up thing again this season. Oh well I work better under pressure anyways!!!!!!! :D

[mapleman3]

Great Weekend.. tag sale went great sold 7 qts of the B, I had sample cups and folks loved it .. they couldn't wait to go make pancakes!! sold about 12 dozen eggs too, I get around 30 eggs a day from my hens, finally my pool is clear enough that the kids can go in now, no more "Dad whens the pool going to be ready" ! Hope everyones weekend went well, the weather stayed pretty nice all weekend with the exception of yesterday morning.. but that just gave me reason to sleep in !!!

ps. got $10 per quart :)

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Jim,

Good grade B has an excellent flavor. You can mix grade B with some Grade A med and get a Grade A dark with an excellent flavor.

Good thing about the pool as we are only 2 months from fall and 1.5 months from school starting.

Hard to believe the summer is going by so fast! :?

[mapleman3]

very true, the season will be on us before we know it.. and I'm ready for it. I decided to wait another year for oil, stay wood this year, so all I'll have to do is check lines and vac system for operation, make sure I have plenty of wood and fire her up. a few odds and ends like anything else, but I'll be ready.

[michaelh05478]

Hey Jim! Sounds like you did OK at your sale....I sold all of my squeeze bottles....Buying a case of each for next year!!! With 200 registered users on this sight you ought to have a lot more Sugar House pics!!!!!!! Come on people!!!!!We all like to see different set ups!!!!!! Send them to Jim, (mapleman3) He'll be more than happy to post them............

[mapleman3]

I actually have recieved some pics, I will compile them and add them to the site, move some around... I'll get to them soon for sure :)

[backyardsugarer]

I have been cleaning and dismantiling everything as we bought a new house. I will be without a shack this year but will build next summer. I was thinking along the lines of 16 X 20. That should be plenty of room for me, my 2X6 and a fridge.

Chris

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Chris,

Since you have a year to save up for the new sugarhouse, you might want to build it a little bigger so you will have room for a kitchen if you ever wanted to section off part of it for one. I may build a sugarhouse in a couple of years and if I do, I am going to build a 30 x 48 with the front 15 x 48 being the sugarhouse and kitchen and the rear 15 x 48 being the utility and equipment building and room for equipment storage, wood storage and sap room.

[ebourassa]

Well all I have left to do is put the roof on the sugar house, cant wait till for the season to start, once I am done I will send pic to mapleman3. I need to find 100 more taps for the new evaporator (BETTY). Got my eye on a few places.
Well IM OFF

[mapleman3]

Sounds great Ebourassa, your in CT right? where about? I'd love to stop by there in my travels, I do some work in CT.......Ahhh so now we have My "ALICE" Brandon's "NELLIE" and ebourassa's "BETTY" abyone else have pet names for their evaps? ?? or do just say your firing up old faithful or the old clunker or what? come on guys this could get interesting!!!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Well, I am finally getting back into the swing of syrup "to do's". I ran close to 400' of mainline and wire today in one of my sugarbushes and hopefully next Sat I can get all the lateral lines ran. I still have a couple of other sugarbushes to do, so I have really got to get cranking besides several other things to do. I finished up all my wood a couple of weeks ago and I have aprox 8 cords of mostly locust and red oak ready and dry for next year.

Good luck to all and it's time to hear some progress from some of you other guest and members! :D

[ebourassa]

i live in Booklyn CT and I cant wait for betty to arrive, and finish the sugar house, I just picked about another 100- 150 taps of all sugar maple, they loved the Idea of free maple syrup. Now I should have between 300-350 taps of sugar, cant wait to start running the tubing in the new bush.

[michaelh05478]

Looked at a house the other day with 240 acres and a 5000 tap sugar house..... :D ....May be expanding in the future...Sugar house set up with vaccum and a RO......NICE............

[mapleman3]

Hey Mike that sounds great!! guess we won't be going in on that 600 acre place as partners then huh ;)

sure would be good for you not to have to travel the 30-40mins to your sugarhouse when you want to boil!!!