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I ended my 2010 year by fishing for Steelhead on the SR. Was a great day on the river. Landed several nice steelhead and fished in 50 degree weather cant beat that deal. Time to do some maple inventory and get some glass and jugs ordered up. Thinking about pulling the plug and buying a filter press. Hope everyone had a safe and happy 1st.
My dad said he would finish welding up my one handed tubing tool tonight. Hopefuly it won't rain during the day so I can start hanging laterals tommorow.
I finished running a re routed run from my old gravity system to my vav tank, had to raise the lines at an anchor tree about 4.5' higher, now I get to the tank at 2% slope and no sap ladder needed on that run. I'll either need to tap 2 trees real high, skip them (3-4 taps) or tap low and have a single lateral as a sap ladder. Did anyone ever try that, lateral tapped below the main and climb about 4' to the main, seems like it should work (roadside trees)? Then I ran a new branch, 300', will be about 7' sap ladder.
I have not yet studied the types of sap ladder. I am familiar with the ones using star fittings, but any other type I do not know. Any input on which will be best to use, about 75-85 taps on this one. Today I will add another branch with another sap ladder needed, maybe 5-6' and another 50-60 taps. I had thought I could do these as 1 branch but as I routed the branch I decided 2 would be better because at one point the terrain rises too high and to go around would use about 75-100' more 3/4" branch and at 2% rise that would have made the rest harder to run. I also have a small section of less than 10 taps that would need another sap ladder. I'm not sure it would be cost effective, but one of the trees is about 18-20" at waist height, is a corner tree surrounded on about 2/3 by open field and has a huge canopy, the sap% could be the highest of any of my trees. Next I'll need to get enough 5/16 tubing for laterals and drops. Once I get these sections finished, hopefully by next weekend I will re route another branch, eliminating lots of long runs on laterals in another section and adding about another 25-30 taps along the way because of running thru a section that previously was not tapped.
Right now it is raining but is supposed to be dry after another hour or two. In the last few days we have lost a lot of snow, with temps in the mid to high 40's 2 of those days. Today it calls for mid 30's and it only dropped to 33 overnight, that and some rain during the night should have the snow down even more. Except where it is drifted most sections in the woods are either bare or only 3-4".
Headed out to the woods to run more lats today. Spent all day yesterday hanging mainline and finishing the siding on the sugar house. Nice weather yesterday, sunny so far today. Also planning to dig the footings for the evap. so we can pour that in the next few days. Might move the head tank into place today as well but not sure yet.
Going out again after breakfast to do drops.... all I have left for fittings is enough to do 250 after that I will know how many more fittings to buy. I should have that done by noon and then on to putting in the meter box for my sap station.
Happy New Year Traders. Was driving by a recycling plant in Medina and saw a load of plastic buckets. Went in and inquired and found they were moving to Cleveland. Bought 215 five gal buckets w/ lids for fifty cents EACH!!!! They were from Smuckers and held strawberry juice! What a great start to the new year! :)
Great find! good for you, assuming you are on buckets. If you have enough extras you might be able to sell a few to get your cost to ZERO.
Today I finished 2 branch lines, strun a new l branch until I ran out of tubing. Then I came home and made up 50 drops. Wilol make 50 more tomorrow and again on Tuesday. Then I need to go buy 3 more 3/4 x 300' coils of 30P and several coils of 5/16 in 30P for my new laterals. Next weekend I want to finish my new branch, and then move on to adding a new branch to split a section I have had for 4 years. Most runs have 8-12 taps, I will split it with a new branch along the mid point and remove half from the old line. I really messed up the way I originally designed it. The old line went up road side picking up the trees there and then each line went across a section of thichk growth with no maples, and on the other side I hit good maple concentrations again. I sort of got where I was because I started with about 3 laterals thru there and thought that would be it. As I expanded to do more I just added more thru the jungle. Proper planning would have run another branch up the back side with all short laterals but with 5-6 taps each and good slope, but I never changed to make it more efficient til now. I must have spenti far more in 5/16 traversing the 100-120' wide non maple section than I would have with an extra branch line. Live and learn. Hopefully I can see these things during the planning stage in the future. This new branch will also run past an added 15-20 new tas as a bonus, ones that were too far to justify a line before. Now it will be just 100-150' from my vac tank, vac pump and my center of operation. I guess this demonstrates the saying that "we get too soon old and too late smart".
mapleflats keep up the good work, Its been a very cold day in michigan, But I finally got started, working on my first woods. Deer tore threw alot of it. So I've been restreching and spicing back together. Tomarrow will be 1 woods done and 7 more to go.
shane
I finaly got my dad to weld up a tubing tool today. I still need to clean it up and paint it but it works for now. Now if I get off the trader I can start making droplines.