february Journal

You're starting to catch on now!! Line the barrels up, it'll come fast once it starts!!

I didnt tap or concentrate any sap or boil any sap this weekend. I spent the entire weekend working on getting ready. I plumbed the new tanks at the sugarhouse, cleaned the evaporator and scrubed tanks, 5 in all. three are in the woods. All in all a real fun time. Friday evening was even more enjoyable. I went in to clarion for some plumbing supplies, we are 25 miles from anywhere. Blew a brake line on my truck and ran into the back of a car. couldn't stop, nowhere to go. Fortunatly no one was hurt. the car took a beating though. Note to every one, if you see a heavy duty pick-up coming down on you fast, get out of the way. You will get the worst of it if you don't.
My mechinac spent the better part of the day replacing all of the brake lines.

It will be the easiest thing you have ever done, let Russ put the wood right to it. Don't get cold feet on us now.

Theron, i hope that you are getting pics of this operation and maybe a video. Good to see that you have some boiling to do and syrup at hand. Russ put another log on for me. Make some steam and have a boiling soda, and a little capt too.

I got another section of mainline up over the weekend, which should get me another 75 taps. I also got my vacuum line from my sugarhouse to my releaser in and my tank and releaser setup at the collection point. Just about ready to go. I also found my one-handed tool! Pretty psyched about that. Just enough snow had melted that I was able to catch a glimpse of the red handle. I still need to plumb my feed tank up to my evaporator and run electric to my sugarhouse so I can run my vacuum pump and blower. Also need to install more laterals. I'll be doing that into the season I think.

put another 300 feet of mainline today got all tubing up just have to put lats up on the new main line tomorrow also ordered another 100 bucket taps today with all 200 buckets up it should put me right around 1100 taps going to make for long nights of boiling on the old 3x8 flat pans can't wait

Boyd, Hope you have the RO on order? Wow I didn't realize you had that many taps running across you 3 x 8 Hope yo got the old girl tuned up and ready:) I have too many at 400 + for my rig. Hope to be gathering about 3:00 tomorrow. We will see what mother nature provides. Rain in the forecast may make for a good first run?

Dave Y,
Glad you or the other folks were not hurt in the accident. My son blew his brake line while setting in the garage several weeks ago. He never moved it and replaced all the brake lines. They were severely rusted away.

Now go out and get all those trees tapped and make us proud!
Some of the others in NWPA must be to tired to type:)

Chris

Just finished up a really good boil this evening, I had to stop to get ready for work.

I figure I had the old barrel evap just a rolling, about 22 gals thru it in just 2 hrs, thats like 11gal/hr.

There was a few time that the preheater/sap feeder wasn't able to keep up with the evaporation rate! I had to laddel in a little.

So it looks like bricking the evap and making the preheater/feeder has really improved it over what I was able to do last year, 8gal/hr.

It looks like I should get a buch more sap tomorrow before a 2 day warm up. I am thinking I might finish what I have in the pan now, it should give me about 2 gal of syrup, and save the sap for Wed when I figure I won't get any because of the weather.

Now that I think about it I will almost make in just 3 boils that I made all last year!!

Chris,

I am running 500+ on a 2x8, so Boyd can do 1,000 on a 3x8 as it is about double the evap rate. He's not getting soft yet!

Chris, I am planning on tapping this weekend. I may not start until Sunday though. I have Monday off and I may go see my daughter in Wilkes -Barre on Saturday. I haven't seen her since July. Once I start it will take about all week to get every thing in. I should be around three thousand when all said and done.I won't have a final count until all the buckets are hung.