February Journal 08, GO TIME

Better never leave it more than 60 seconds, 5 minutes will burn up a pan and better not even leave it 60 seconds if you are close to a draw.

Valley view-

International paper is in Jay, and the biggest log buyer around is Irving, and there plant for softwood logs is in Dixfield, just a couple of towns over.

Nice pictures, it's great that more and more people are putting up pictures of there operations.

Temps look good for Northern NJ this coming week. I have about 50 taps in, with anohter 50 to go in mid-week. Here we goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! :)

I must say every year I learn something new - never leave the evaporator AND order 50% more packaging conatiners than you you think you may need, just in case it's a good year. Gathered ~375 gallons today, and did not get them all (I can't wait to go to tubing!!). Still holding about 2.3% sugar into our fifth week of sugaring. It has been a good year, and will use up all our conatiners by the end of the night and will finish up around 70 gallons of syrup. Next year I will order 100 gallons worth of containers.

I mostly drained my syrup pan today, and we are back to making Grade A Dark syrup. THanks for the tip. Taps are still running hard even after those 60 degree days. Next year will be a great year, I am already thinking about how much wood I will need - got plenty this year - and a 600 gallon storage tank and a blower for the evap.

Beatiful night tonight for aboil, no wind and clear skies under a partial moon.

Andrew

Andrew,
For next year you should look into putting up some of your syrup in 5 gallon cans to hold till you need more to bottle up. Just a thought.
Mark

GMCOOPer,

I bought 5 gallon containers this year, getting ready to use them. I might get two more for next year. Boil is going well, will wrap up here in about an hour.

AKM

I had to go get another bulk tank this one also a 400 sunset. Thursday night before dark I go up to the barn to scope out everything and make my final plan of attack.Saturday around noon I get up there and there is a path beaten down from Rt 40 to the barn . This barn is all overgrown and at least 500 yards off the road. JUNKIES attacked The tank is still there but stripped everything that was soft metal was chopped with an ax or something. There were 4 universal stainless milker pails with lids......... The list goes on and on. It just never seems to end around here. I got the tank out of the concrete and rolled up on its edge.I hope that I can get some help on sunday to move it the rest of the way out. The only saving grace is that there was a blood trail where one of the thiefs cut themselves and dribbled spots of blood back to the road. But aside from the stuff taken I guess the worst part of the story is that some of the foot prints in the snow looked like they belonged to a little kid they were about 6"long and real close together. I will rest easy knowing that some scum bag is raising there kids up exposing them to that kind of BS. I think it is time for me to fill my property with Mc.Mansions sell them and move up to northern Vermont where maples are plenty........Good night -ss

super sappy,
Sounds like you had a bad day. It is sad that there are such disrespectful people out there. A couple years ago I had my tractor at the sugarbush, went to gather sap and some low life had siphoned all the fuel out of my tractor. As if it isn't hard enough to make a buck in the syrup business!!!

supper sappy- I got just the place for you...got this listing in my email the other day...if you could get $500,000 for your place, you could get this one and put up a nice sugaring operation with the leftovers...

http://www.fountainsrealestate.com/p...sc.aspx?Id=148

anyone on here know this property? looks pretty nice from the few photos...

-tuckermtn

update on Theerons BIGSAP- I just came in the house. Have 1220 taps on 26" plus 60 cull trees on it. The cull trees are small ones im going to cut out. So I have 1280 by canadian specs. The pump is running smoothly at 26". The lines are just starting to thaw out. The mainlines were froze solid becouse I didnt have the pump running yet when I first tapped. Its supposed to be 40 degrees untill tomarrow night right through the night. Im hoping when the lines thaw tonight all hell breaks loose. Keep you posted. Theeeron