Nope today only 1-7. I probably won't be able to talk tomorrow after that shift.
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Nope today only 1-7. I probably won't be able to talk tomorrow after that shift.
well was done classes for the day at 10 but cant go home, gotta stay here tonight so i can catch a ride up to glen goodriches boiling school for the maple production class im taking here. nothing to do here in the mean time today, what an awesome day to work in the woods and im stuck here thinking about what i could be doing right now, that and boiling school tomorrow so saturdays shot all thats left is sunday too much to do! moving the tank to the back of the sugar house on sunday, maybe i'll go crazy and move it saturday night, cant seem to locate the lights though i took them out of the sugar house for some thing else this summer and they seem to have dissapeared, hm, mean while on the hunt for a real cheap truck the chevys not gunna last much longer.
forgot to add how they said we were gunna get 8-14 inches of snow and ended up with about 26! it was hard trying to do my last minute logging as it was before this storm! going to have to pull out all my tractor manuvering skills and tricks now, hopefully i dont burry it theres alot of snow in the woods, snow shoes are manditory now to work on pipeline! at least its not like last year where there was 6 inches of snow on the ground at this time and by the time tapping came it was almost all gone i gues ide rather have a ton of it than none!
We were on the right side, they forcast 18" and we got 8, our other 10" must have gone to you. I didn't want it anyways.Quote:
Originally Posted by dano2840
Today I finished mounting the engine on my vacuum pump, and put the belt on. Next I've got to find some help to get the pump to the bush, and about 40' thru deep snow and 6' down into a cellar, all without dumping it or anyone getting hurt. At the bush I have about 30" +/- on the ground to make it fun.
Just about ready to rock and roll here.
The arch is all set up, bricked in, pans set, float box set…
Need to plumb the nurse tank to the float box and finish setting the stack, one minor repair to do on a main out in the woods and we are good to go.
12 to 14 inches on the ground out there with a few deeper drifts, may need to plow some of the trails.
Soon, me friends, soon.
Oh crap Man did I have senior moment or what! I posted my last one in the Jan posting!!
Not sure why or how that happen.
Oh well.
Dennis- I follwed your trend haha....oops!:lol:
Fixed my tank leak today. New bulkhead fitting did the job. I also replaced the metal fittings on the line with plastic as I hate to see rust. No leaks found so far but I didn't fill the tank more than 5 gallon.
Picking up 35 more buckets tomorrow. That'll bring me to 125 taps. Should be plenty for my second year.
Suppose I should go out and play in the woods. 2' of snow to pack down and make a few trails. Nothing like walking in the woods while it's freezing rain outside! Sure wish it was snowing though. This ice is the pits.
100% ready to go. Bring it on!!!
I quit early because we are having real heavy snow. Visability is poor. I don't like parking my truch on the shoulder when visability is this bad, I don't have time to look for another truck, and I can't get off the road very far, ditch is too deep. I did finish setting up my vacuum pump, still need to set it at the bush, need help for that. I mounted the pump on a pallet and after placing it I will add a roof to keep direct rain and most snow off.
what a fun day 3 hrs on snow shoes in waist deep snow up and down and up and down the sugar bush ....picking the tubing up out of the snow and setting them shoulder height again ....then about the last hour was in sleet then cotton ball size snow flakes the rain the sleet snow ...
Worked all day today, got everything but the evaporater washed. Hooked up the blowers on the evaporater, plumbed the line from the headtank to the evaporater, washed about 60 buckets last night. The weather is starting to look good for next weekend (Feb 12/12)
I finally had a good reason to use my new snowblower (see video on my flickr). It mounts on the front of the Kubota and cuts through 14" of snow and deeper drifts without an issue. I might have to get some chains for the tractor but it worked great today. I'm feeling really good about getting back to the sugar shack. Maybe next weekend I can fire up the arch for a test boil.
Made the hour trip down the highway to Squirrel Creek farms.. near Peterborough.. and spent my fortune on fittings, mainline, etc today.. nice drive down with the 8 year old after hockey... now officially have spent at least triple what I will make on any syrup sales so I must be about ready!
Any ontario folk in this area should make the trip up there, they are great folks and happy to hand out advice to those who need it. Not too far up 28 off the 401.
Several things going on here today. Still plenty to do.
Picked up all my fittings, ball valves, etc. to plumb the new releaser. Getting ready to start assembling tonight.
The wife is working on getting the new website published. Should be up before the "big game" tomorrow.
Spent several hours in the bush today. Got the 300 gal tank washed and ready for the releaser. Ran 400' of black plastic to the tank for the dry line. Dry line came in handy running hot water down to the tank!
Installed 150+ new drop lines.
Got the new syrup kitchen/RO room all wired and insulated. Putting in the OSB walls. Milkhouse heater is working great. Nice and comfy, and should be perfect for keeping the RO warm in a couple weeks.
Greg
Well it was one of those days and I need to vent some!
On the good note we got power down to our pump station! So here comes the bad part yay we have power lets fire up the vacuum pump for the first time (Alamo 30). So at first we couldn't get it to pull vacuum then after 5 mins of running it starts pulling out of the blue and jumps to 25". So I rushed around to adjust our regulator which doesn't work come to find out even with it fully open it didn't let in enough air. So we open up our belly releaser still trying to adjust the regulator but with no luck so we close the lines and shut down the pump. So when we go back down to try something elder we turn on the pump and it was siezed. I guess it spun back words so its time to buy and plumb in a check valve and have the dealer come and fix it and bring a proffesional regulator.
So after this craziness I decide to switch the pump on the belly releaser and make sure it turns. Well it turns but it sound like its dieing. I hope it just needs liquid on the head to lubricate it.
After all of this it started to blizzard out so I couldn't bring myself to tap in today like I had planned. So frustrated I hope we can get this all figured out before the warm up. Lol well thanks for listening and if you guys have any ideas or hints it would be greatly appreciated.
So it looks like we here in Northern VT are gonna get an early warm up starting 2/13. This is only our 2nd year tapping and we've got a lot of snow in the woods. Should we tap before this warm up? Think it'll run with all the cold and snow we still have?
Deep snow here..got the sugarhouse roof shoveled off..only thing that really slides off that roof is me!!! 2+ feet were on there and we got some rain last night so I was getting pretty concerned...Just looked at the accuweather forcast....looks like sugaring is going to come quicker than I would have thought...Incredably long list of things to do to get ready...havent been in the woods for some time, but, were were all up to snuff on woods work about a month ago....got to get my c.v's and plumb-wire the R.O......and just moved onto a new logging job.....snow is up to my belt..have to shovel out every tree....wonder where my snow shoes are???
I have been waiting and waiting but I just cant wait any longer, I to am going the tap next weekend. weather is looking good but then cold for a few days.Quote:
Originally Posted by BradWilson
Looking at the long range forecast from accuweather i will tap this coming weekend at my lower bush and the following weekend at my mountain bushes cant wait to start boiling with 600 taps out. yessssssss the season is getting closer i cant wait. cpmaple
Parker,Quote:
Originally Posted by Parker
I if tapped and made syrup based on accuweather, I don't think I would ever get very far at least down here. They have some of the dumbest forecasts I have ever seen and are so overly optomistic it makes them look stupid.
They have been pretty accurate the past few days as far as temp here in my location of ny. So i think i will go ahead and start tapping next weekend for sure and do the most of my tapping the following weekend like i posted beforeQuote:
Originally Posted by WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER
We had alot of snow in jan. but the last two storms was mainly rain here. Only about 12 inch's or so on the ground now. That is alot better than the 50 plus inches we slugged through last year to tape.
Finnally got the roof on the temporary shack yesterday. need to sheet the walls and move the arch in and insulate and brick and run tubbing and set tanks and..... We tap in june Right:o:lol::(
The only accurate weather accuweather is able to get right is the day before forecast. Had a big storm yesterday and not even the local channel said anything about it. Last night high temps for today was 23 degrees. I woke up this morning and it was already 30 and its 34 right now. They have absolutely no clue how to predict weather. It is in fact a waste of time to even watch the weather report. I get a good laugh when they all say todays high is ( whatever ) and its already above that temp. Idiots all of them. Im going go to cut wood.
Wicked lightening and thunder. Lasted an hour or so. Got 8 inches of snow in the process. Came back from Leader in Swanton at 4:30 (total white-out!) had to drive 30-40mph the whole way back on Interstate 89 and rt.2. Got home with the Double releaser though...gonna mount the releaser in the sugarhouse today over a "cut in half" 35 gallon drum then plumb the existing 2" pvc to the side bung of the drum and redirect the sap to four holding tanks.
I am now officially ready to tap.
I placed my tank and milk releaser for the lower trees and fired up the vac to look for any leaks. Found a stubby that was chewed completely off by a tree rat and a stubby that was hanging no longer on the T fitting plug.
The biggest leak I found was a 3/4" barb fitting that came undone. I had to put a new piece of 3/4" black pipe back in the ends were now more that 8" apart!!
Once they were fixed I had vac running right at 23"
Got the 55 gal drum ready that I will be using to collecting sap from the buckets, it fits real nice in the bed of my Kubota RTV.
Farmall H, let us know how tha new fancy releaser works for you, got any pics??
Did a test boil today. All went great !! :D
So basically you are saying... you made some soup outdoors? :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Fishgill
Just teasing. These guys that are already bottling are driving me crazy because I still have weeks to go before I even start looking to tap.
I hear ya. I had to stop myself after boiling 30 gallons of water.:lol:
I can't wait for the season to start.
Put up tubing on three huge maples today. I tapped these 10 years ago and they ran real well on buckets.
Have some other lines to put up this week to have every thing ready to tap.
I know every one is getting busy.
Chris
I went to look at some tanks today for myself and a couple other syrup makers. The cage tanks had iodine in them. Not sure I want to use them. I found out from the guy that my fellow syrup maker from across town was there yesterday. He bought a few of the tanks and some other nice poly tanks. The guy selling the tanks was an old syrup maker. He has a few SS bulk tanks. I'm buying the 400 gal. tank.
Installed more drop lines and saddles today. Put in my first sap ladder; sap's got to climb about 6'. Getting closer. One more weekend and maybe we'll be ready.
My wife published the website: www.troutbrooksugarhouse.com . Now time to go watch the game!
Greg
Started tapping today. Took all afternoon to get 258 taps in. There is so much snow. Just below my waist, not fun at all. I couldnt believe how good the sap was running. There is absolutly no frost in the ground. Pretty much mud underneath the snow. We will see what tomorow brings us.
I got my vacuum pump in place today. Now I need to plumb it in and get ready to tap. Right now I think I have about 520 -530 taps on that bush. I'll get a good cound when I tap. I keep track of the CV's and get my final tap count from that.
Getting closer. Sap was probably running today but Im not ready yet and it's supposed to get cold for another few weeks. This weekend I didn't get much done because I had to shovel off the house and animal barn roofs. I love having metal on the sugar shack roof. I didn't even touch it and all the snow slid off even the north side. I did manage to work on the evaporator a little bit. I riveted the sides together and marked the stainless so my dad can cut it tonight. I also took off the last two sheets of roofing on the north side of the sugar shack and cut the pine boards off between two rafters for the bigger stack for the new evaporator.
Well Amber Gold and I put some serious miles on the snowshoes this weekend.
Got his woods set for tapping on saturday and strung mainline for my expansion sunday. Nothing like the last moment. Should have 300 taps at least on less than 2 acres. They are odd smooth barked sugars. And I'll be tapping some on a ladder but it should be great. Next weekend is looking warm at this point but I don't believe the weather liars.
Got about 250 tapped yesterday. It is a bear tapping with all the snow and crust, a lot slower than I expected. Putting about half on CV's and half on Lapierre disposables this year. Broke a couple Cv's putting the staubby on, broke the fingers off one side so it must not have been seated properly. Want to get woods all tapped and then size up the weather for just the right time to start hanging buckets. Figure I'll be one switch away (power to the vacuum pump) from sap by the weekend if I do a little after work each day.
well between the two storms we got this week, my sugar roads dissapeared, tried to plow them out with the jd, problem was that even with the blade all the way up i was still pushing 4" and the tractor was hardly moving because the axle was pushing snow, she just couldnt do it, going to have to go get the big 100horse 4x4 fergie and plow em out i gues and do the rest of my logging with that while ive got it for the day, didnt get my tank moved over the weekend, went to glen goodriches maple school on saturday, got home and no more than 10 min after i got home the boss man called and asked me to plow with his other truck, we plowed all night until 10 sunday morning went plowed my drive way attepted to plow the sugar roads, shoveled a roof went back to school and did home work till 11 was up 41 hours straight, got nothing sugaring related done this weekend! oh well i got all next weeks vacation to take care of it, and get tapped! im thinking its about nap time right now
Finished cutting all the stainless for my evaporaotor. Tommorow I'm going to rivet it together and drill the holes for the bolts. I'm waiting on 20 stainless nuts that are coming this week. This weekend I plan to bring my pans to my dads friends house to get a few holes welded and thermometer ports welded on my front pan. Then I need to brick my evaporator, put the stack up, put a few peices of roofing back up, put my head tank up, get bottles, finish puttig up tubing, and then I can tap and make syrup.