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Carhartt's now 40% off at Tractor Supply, wool socks too. Apparently I spend too much time at TS.
Finished the two new short main lines, lats and drops today. Picked up another 100 taps. Deciding whether to add another for this season. Glad I picked up the RO, my wood pile looks a bit smaller than usual. I've run out of wood every year - I assume I will this year as well.
I finally got to go glissade today for the first time in my life. I grew up with no hills so we didn't even own a tobaggon. I went up and down until I was tired. Then we had a tug a war and they found out this old man isn't as whimpy as they thought. Why I never had a coronary today lord only knows.
I am getting someplace with maple finally. Tomorrow should put a good hole in most of the work except washing which I need a bit warmer weather to do in. Found a place with cheap SS so I bought what I needed instead of trying to cut cornors.
Just have to figure out just how high to make the splash guards for my drop flue pans. I am hopeing 6 inchs extra will help. If I go to high she who has to be obeyed is only 4ft11 so she won't be able to reach over the top. With a test boil I should know better sort of as water dosn't spit as much as hot sap does.
I added 4 inch splash shields to my drop tube sap pan, but after yesterdays test, I found that was not enough. Will try some aluminum screenover the top and if that works, will look for some SS screen.
Man do those drop tubes boil.
I leveled up the mainline where it crosses the sugarhouse yard on it's way to the main storage tank. I wired it off the end rafter of the sugar house so I can drive the tractor under it on the way to the wood shed to be. I cleanned out the local Leader dealer of 5/16 tubing and have all but one roll strung out. The dealer is expecting their main shipment of supplies next tuesday. Good thing to as they dont have a single T to their name or any filter liners.
It's 5 degreesF here right now but sunny so when it warms up I'll go run out that last roll of blue then work on wood,tanks etc. until tuesday. Hopefully I can be already to go by this time next week.
after much thought and talking i think i going to tap in my tubing this week will see what happens i keeping my fingures crossed
today, i went up to the woods and put some saddles in, tomorow i plan to run some mainline wire for a other line to pick up a other 100 or so taps, then off to the other bush to fix lines and add some more if possible and then off to the two other bushes to get them ready and then i have to clean the sugarhouse and clean tanks get everything set in the sugarhouse and then ill tap, probably 2 weeks, then ill probably start drilling holes if the weather looks good,
Today was a get ready day. Spent the morning at Amber Gold's. Supposed to be helping. But most of the time, I spent holding a ruler and looking confused. He was trying to get the grade on vac line back to the sugar house. A little different scope of technical know how. After all I was trying to figure out how to a hang a bucket so "buddy the steer" couldn't lick it yesterday. Never figured I'd have a "buddy" problem in February. Checking the line that I tapped yesterday, I got probably 20 gallons or so in the tank, which isn't back for feb 12.
Then Josh came over to my humble shack and we got the evap just about ready. The arch board is in, the pans are leveled, the blower works, the hood fits. All that's needed now is tomorrow's trash can roof jack and a stand made for the head tank. I'm shooting for a boil on wensday.
Also noticed some trees next door to one of my new tubing runs that I'm going to ask about in the morning.
More snow on the way Sun night thru Tues and no warmup in sight next 10 days. Kinda crazy as I had made decent amount of syrup by this time last year. Looks like we could easily go over 150 inches of snow this year, its quite unbelievable.
What's crazier is our forecast is calling for high 30s maybe 40s for a week. And the woods are bare ground. Just a bit of granular/icey snow. Sugar snow.
Today I went and got jugs another hydrometer just to have a second one and a hydrometer cup. I also got prefilters. They didn't have filters in stock but they were coming in later in the day so there shipping them out to me Monday. I still need to replace the back of my halfpint evaporator. I'll get it done this week. My pump should be here Monday or tuesday. Yesterday my grandpa set up a woodstove in my sugar shack. It stays nice and warm now. I got some stuff cleaned up yesterday. I got a load of slabwood today. It's about a cord and a half I'll cut it up this week. The rush is on. Maple seasons almost here.