2009 Village Mapleworks Season

[maplwrks]

My buddy Pete and I finished tapping everything Wednesday night. I fired up the vacuum pump----NOTHING!! I have an Atlantic Fluids OSR15 pump and it wasn't pulling any vacuum at all! I took it home, completely drained all of the oil and refilled with new oil. Thursday, I took it back to the woods and reinstalled it, fired it up, NOTHING!! After a long ride, and a few Labatts Blues, I made a call to Glenn Goodrich for some much needed advice. It appears that there is a flow restrictor on the side of the oil reservoir that loves to plug up, BINGO! For all of you out there that have an OSR pump, make sure you drain the oil AFTER the season. Mine had sucked some moisture into the pump and coagulated the oil, and plugged the restrictor. We got it all cleaned out and fired it up and shes' now pulling 26" at the pump, 24" at the last tap. Sap was running real good on Saturday morning until the cloud cover came in and shut it down. It raining hard here now, and it looks like tomorrow will be spent in the sugarhouse getting things ready to go there. I may boil on Sunday night---We'll see

[sweetvt]

GO MIKE GO, I was wondering when we would be getting the big sap report from southern Addison County and the sap mecca of Orwell. How much snow is left down there? still about 2 feet in the woods here,but I am sure with this rain it took a pretty good hit overnite.

[maplwrks]

Vacuum is the word of the day==without it, I would not have got the 300 gallons of sap on top of the 500 that ran over night. Trucked it all home, sweetened it up, and now I have 350 gallons of 14% concentrate. We gathered 1250 gallons off the 500 taps that I have the vacuum on, in the past 2 days. I'll boil it tomorrow night, after the rig is sweetened up, I should make a few gallons. We're looking a marginal week here as far as sap is concerned, with highs in the mid-upper 30's each day with rain or snow each day.

[802maple]

Hey you,

I didn't get a phone call, so I am assuming everything went well with the R.O.

[maplwrks]

This is the 4th day in a row that the vacuum has run---24" all through the woods. Gathered another 500 gallons this afternoon and run it through the RO and right into the evaporator. Started the rig with 14% concentrate, finished with 26%!!! Syrup came fast when it started to come!! Made 8 gallons of nice quality product. The RO is working great Bean!! Got a few leaks to repair in my plumbing, nothing we can't handle!

[maplwrks]

The vacuum pump finally got a break last night, as it dropped to 20 degrees here. It has run nonstop since last Friday, 24" all through the woods. I've made 20 gallons each of the last 2 nights, medium and dark amber. That puts us at 52 gallons so far. I got to go get some PVC fittings to to fix a couple leaks in the RO room, then I will boil in the 1000 gallons of sap that I have sitting in the tank. Now that it has turned a little colder, I think I'm going to clean out the evaporator and start fresh to see if I can't get my grade up.

[maplwrks]

The last day that I boiled here was Thursday. I made 40 gallons of Medium Amber--high quality product! This puts us at 90+gallons for the year so far. Things have been pretty well locked up here, kinda good, gives me a chance to catch up on a bunch of little things that I wanted to get done. Had to go get antibiotics today, came down with friggin strepped throat! Bad enough that we beat ourselves up during the season, I didn't need this. Looks like I'll be boiling tomorrow.

[KenWP]

Send the sap up this way please but keep the sore throat. If I get sap I will need to be up all night boiling.Where is Orwell anyways.

[802maple]

Orwell is a hick town West of Rutland about mid way of the state.

[maplwrks]

It's been a great week here so far--Sap has been running real good. Sunday, we made 40 gallons, Monday 40 gallons, and last night, we made 30+. This puts us at nearly 200 thus far.No freeze here last night, so I don't anticipate much sap today. It might be a good day to catch up on some other items that I need to get done before Maple Open House weekend. I had some real good friends stop by last night to boil. I started out sugaring with these folks 25 years ago. Got to show a young lady from daown in Danville Va. how to make syrup. Didn't take her long before she was drawing syrup like a pro.

[paul]

Yo Mike Are You Ok? Were Have You Been? Are You Still Boiling? Give Us Some Info Dude.

[hard maple]

Yeah where is that ole yardbird

probably too busy canning syrup to gossip on the trader!!!!