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Hi Beth,
Careful not to get too much comfort going on there. Sattelite dish and recliner sounds like a recipe to fall asleep especially next to the warm evaporator hehe. I am mostly ready just waiting for the next warmup. Cleaned the evaporator and sugarhouse last week when it was warm and reconfigured and old woods cart for 325 gal. polytank to haul from roadside trees 6 miles away. I havnt tapped these trees for 5 years and with the poor volume of sap from the woods trees Ive been tapping figured the extra work and distance was worth it.
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I have tv in my saphouse, and a comfy chair, and yes I've fallen asleep in it a couple times while boiling. Nice to have a wood fired evaporator that stops itself after a bit. Went and looked at two of my other sugarbushes today. One had a ten foot section of tubing gone, something was hungry. The other is a mess. Mainline down, spiles came off of the t's and them darn wasps plugged them. A good morning of work in it.
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March is syrup season. March is also college hoops. I used to boil outside, often finishing under flashlight, while my wife sat in the family room watching basketball. No more - as soon as I moved into the sugar shack, I ran about 500 feet of cable from the house to the sugarshack.
Now we have a pizza delivered. Put the pizza box right on top of the steam hood, and pizza stays hot and we all (wife and our two girls) eat pizza, watch basketball and make syrup. Great times!
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For the past few weeks I have been putting in some time in the woods upgrading everything I can for this year. Ran 500' more 1" dry line and added two vacuum boosters to get better vacuum to the upper end of one section. Added more shut off valves to help detect leaks. Thinned and cleared out a few areas to add more taps. Finally ran new laterals to a couple sections that I skipped years ago and never got round to doing before. Have a couple short sections of mainline to run still and few more taps to add to them. Built and replaced drop doors for the cupola. Waiting for the new Vacuum pump to show up then will have to get that hooked up. Still have a bit more tubing repairs to make. At this rate I might even be ready this year. I have the new tapping bits already waiting, I haven't tried them in the drill yet. Trying 300 of the disposable spout adapters also this year. Construction is extremely slow so I might as well make use of the time!
Mark
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DaveY- Im going to try to put the pans on tomarrow. Got to get the ro room done first. Just got the gasket so I couldnt put them on before. Takes me a long time to do anything becouse Im kind of finicky. Bought enough ball valves today to to put a shutoff on every main. Parker told me told me high vac levels are abolutely critical to production so im not messing around. Gages everywhere. Tthhheeeerrrrroooooonnnnnnn.
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I've been getting things ready. It's about a month from the earliest possible start date here in Maine, but there is always lots to do. I fixed the mast that the electricity is hooked to, with the help of a friend who can do anything. I sent off for new plugs. The ones we had leaked and fell into the pan. It's not worth it to have things that drive you crazy. There's enough that can go wrong without that.
We have our wood ready, but have a lot of little fix ups to do up in the sugarwoods. I plan on using February vacation for that.
There must be 3 feet of snow in places, so we'll have to tap low so that the taps aren't all up there in the treetops by the end of the season.
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Theron, Nothing wrong with finicky. Your operation is real neat. that's something i have never been. I put the last touches on then tubing system this afternoon. It is done!!! The tanks will get set Sunday and then I can tap on Monday:)
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One thing that is not mentioned on here a lot is that this winter is about as close to a normal winter as we have had in 3 or 4 years. Been cold here for most of the past 6 weeks and the next 10 days look the same which will put us close to Feb.
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DaveY Nice job on the lines. Are saying you are going to tap monday of next week? Ive got at least two weeks to go to be ready but that would put me first of feb and Im hoping it gets cold for a little while. Im going to watch my buddy Richard and tap when he does. Pans are on the evap and I hope to finish ro room today. Theron
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Dave-
Upload some of those pics so we can see what's going on.
