December Journal

Casey,
Thanks for the fall tapping progress report!

Regards,
Chris C.

Yes sir sugarmaker there was no fall tapping this year. I put myself up to all the excitement of a fall tap and it resulted in a flop. Same thing here, Temps were to warm and now to cold. I have some taps out and plan was soon as I got a decent run I was putting the rest in. If I wait any longer for the first run it is gonna be spring. I sure hope a bad fall season only leads to a great spring one. Only time will tell.

3rd,
I give you folks credit for trying!

Chris C.

Thanks Sugarmaker. I got my dad all ramped up for a fall tap and dissapointed him on this one. He kept telling me you can't fall tap what are you thinking. He calls every couple days and I can picture the grin on his face when he sais " hows the sap running today son". My dad is a smart*@#.
I keep telling him wait till next year.

When my son in law and I were breaking out the sap roads with our tractors yesterday we saw some damage to one of our laterals as it happened. A bull moose had wandered down into one of the areas where I have tubing and stretched one of the laterals until it broke when he was making his retreat. Got some pictures that I will post at a later date.

Got some repair work on the tubing done as well. Still have about a cord and a half of sugar wood to get in but other than that we're in pretty good shape around here.

I pulled the mobile sugar shack up to the house yesterday. I got it all leveled up, just need to clean. I have a board member of our area Woodland Owners group coming by Wednesday. He would like to make syrup and I'm goiong to show him some pointers.

I did finish up deer hunting. Got lucky a week and a half ago. Shot an 11 point. 16 1/2 inside, 8" G2's. Heavy mass.

I wouldn't mind a little more snow here we had some cold arould 10-15 yesterday AM then it warmed and rained last night and re-froze...yeah great fun!!!

I tapped 2 trees last week just for kicks and got about a quart of sap and we had that cold and snow snap and temps should be around 40F today so I should get a little dripping out of them today and tomorrow we'll see then we are gettign some good cold for the end of the week with snow forcasted for sun. and mon but thats a week away it changes from hour to hour!!!

just found out that the truck i was going to get wont be finished being rebuilt by christmas and the next time he would be back up to vt would be august. also the gear shift on the tractor i found out has water in it and is froze solid so when i want to use the thing i have to heat it with a torch for 20 minutes, and my wood is covered with snow and i gotta find a way to get it into the shed real quick, also having friend troubles, sick of all the drama and the BS i think its stupid how you cant say any thing with out making some one mad, but thats highschool BS but good news i got an acceptance letter from VTC so looks like im going to college next year for dairy management, went and saw "the logger" on saturday that was hilarious still things are not going well for me right now, slid off the sugar house roof last night there was enough snow so i didnt get hurt when i hit, got lucky i guess

DanO, congrats on getting accepted to VTC. I was there on Maplerama last year, looked like a good place. Are you going to sugar there during school? They had a nice little sugarhouse, seemed like a good operation. Be careful with the roof, tough to sugar with a broken ankle!
-Andy

And I thought my life was weird. I usually have any number of females ticked off at me in about 4 languages right now. Helps when I just say J'ai ne sai pas and go about my day.
This last weekend made a good dent in the new evaporator project. Xmas holidays should get it pretty well done. The hardest part will be to solder all the drop tubes in and make 19 more of them at least I should get done by April in time for sap season.