Nate,
I would go with 8" and I think this will make you happy since it is only 5' long!
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Nate,
I would go with 8" and I think this will make you happy since it is only 5' long!
After wrapping up Deer season with two of my brothers on Saturday, I went to the woods yesterday and put in an 8 hr day. Installed over 150 drops and then tied off 800 ft of 3/4 line. Wore out two labs and then went home and watched the Steeler/Ravens game. Not a bad day.
had a snow day on friday, slep in woke up at about 8 and warmed up the old deere and headed into the woods. put up abunch of wire and about 150ft of 3/4" and 100ft of 1/2", ran out of wire ties and main line wire,. i have to go down to NY and go look at my evap and pick it up. ITs an older grim arch with (4x12) with an 8ft stainless raised flue and 4ft stainless syrup pan. for 4500. guy says the pans dont appear to have seen much sap at all. Do you guys think its a good deal, oh also he has ordered a complete new stack for it included in the price. Also there is a 3 1/2 x 14 on craigslist. isnt 14' too long for only a 3 1/2 ft arch????????????????? i thought the smallest width u could go for 14' was 4x14 with out loosing efficientsy its 3500 w stainless pans and 3 cross flows wich is better???????????
i think its funny all you guys who are gunna try to sugar until your 99 im 16 and am already sugaring and plan to start a dairy farm and sugar when i finish high school and collage so how long do you think i will last for? 35 40? maybe 45 befor im shot completely. HAHAHA
they say sugaring really starts at 50
If you are completely Shot at 45 you have done some mighty hard living. And I have And I can out last any of the young bucks that help with my operation.
Dont sell your self short
well i think i will go for a while as long as possable or until i fall over dead.:p
I can keep up with my uncle in his sugar bush and run right around in deepsnow and up hills. i may be a small kid but im pretty rugged. Theres only 1 kid i know that can ram and jam through the woods like me and hes a farmer to. i can handle my ol' 61 husky saw pretty well i might need to if this wind keeps up, It blew my grill over today and is shaking signs and the telophone wires some thing feirce. i wouldnt doubt it if 1 of those 3-4ft maples in my bush desided they had lived long enough!
Guys- What does this dream mean to you? Last night I woke up screaming and swearing from a dead sleep and I can remember the nightmare vividly. I had a bulktank buried in the ground and it had gravity line running into it and I went out the next day and it was full and running over. My first thought was it was ground water running into it but it was sap and it was running right over the top. Thats when the screaming and swearing began. Also and this is no joke about a week ago I had a dream that Marmaduke was running around and he had a 7/16 spile and drop sticking out of him. Does this mean its going to be a real good season or does it mean that I need some kind of intervention or a psychiatric evaluation of some kind? Theron
There must be something you can do in the sugarhouse to relieve the fear!! it's only a few months ... go sit in a chair and stare at the stainless.....hey theres plenty to do up here!!!too tired to dream!
Jim- I have a ton to do too. I think I drank too much coffee last night before I went to bed. I think it means we are going to have a humdinger banner season. Im an optimist and thats how Im reading it. I think were having the best season in years. BIGSAP EVERYWHERE!!!!! Theron
DaveY- You better cut more wood you have the power of the buckets on your side. I still question if 27" will beat a bucket on the right day. Definitely will on the wrong day though. Theron
I wish you were right. with the storm that hit, many will be scaled way back on taps...IF they even tap at all this year. I'm getting some rough reports from some Ma. members and it's not good.
Please anyone post your thoughts on your future tapping this year after the damage, keep us updated.
Theeeron, lets hope the BIGSAPPPP happens for sure!!!
well if the season is going to be what you guys are saying, maybe i shouldn't put the vacuum to my super maples (18"-4ft) that are spaced properly and havent been tapped in 45 years!!!!
i might have to borrow some of the mexicans from my friend davey Defreest from his farm to run my rig 24/7.
Im really sorry to hear that. Weve got some bad Ice here before and it makes your heart sink bad. Hope the best for everyone. Theron
Dano- That vac is your best friend. We usually get bad years here and that really saves the guys. If you can do it make it happen, best thing you ever do if you want sap. My buddy came buy first run last year and hes sugared all his life and looked at my releaser running and I asked him if hed ever seen anything like it. All he could say was no. He bought a ring pump the next day and thats no joke. Just before season he told me he didnt think the vac payed. He was totall flabergasted as was I. Coolest thing you ever see. Theron
here in waitsfield we had a little ice on the trees for a day but you wouldnt have seen it if you werent looking at the trees. we hardly got any ice, its windyer than you can believe right now, i didnt go into the woods after school because of it, im worried about walking up there tomarrow and seeing the damage. probably not to bad the bush is pretty prottected a burm at the bottom w hemlock hemlock on the 2nd side and some soft maple then hemlock and pine on the 3rd side and on the forth a small stretch of hard woods before it turns to you guessed it hemlock.but there are fields on 2 sides beyond the hemlock so idk until i get up there Wish me luck! and good luck to the people who were affected by the ice.
We had a bit of ice up by our sugarhouse, but none in town. I noticed that there was ice on one hill, and none on another.
Ice storms are awful, but they sure are beautiful. The sun shining through the trees on Saturday was amazing.
We still have 50 taps or so to install over X-mas, and then we're ready.
I don't plan on having as many buckets this year. Everyone else is very enthusiastic about tapping, but not as enthusiastic about collecting.
We'll have one little loop of 10 or 15 taps and the rest on tubing.
I love doing a little collecting.
Dano
Either of those evaporators should work for you. The 4x14 is more common. I have friends that make a lot of syrup on a 4x14! My thought would be go with what will best fit your budget. With maple equipment you can always upgrade when you find something better. At 16 you've got a couple seasons to make enough syrup to pay for college. LOL You were planning on college right???
Mark
here in nw pa no ice it is kinda looking like spring some rain and a 40 degree day almost all the snow is melted witch was good cause all the snow came off the sugar house roof and blocked the door the snow was all most to the roof
Theron,
There would be more wood at my place if ihad anywhere to put it. Ran out of room to stack it. I left about 6 cord in the woods that I had cut. I'm not sure on how to get it out either, as the Forest Service has blocked my only way in.
Dave- Too bad about that wood. Can you get slab wood from a local mill for free maybe to hedge your bets? I think I can here and I think Im going to do that. I cant wait to see how you do when you put vac on those trees of yours. With as good as they did last year on gravity youll have all the sap you want then I bet. I told a local guy what I was doing this year with my 3 by 10 yesterday and he was a little concerned for me. Hes not running a whole lot more than me and he has all kinds of equipment. I like your attitude about it. Too much sap is a good problem just buy more tanks. Theron
Danno.
With the price of a new evaporator, both of the evaporators sound like a good deal. I would think the 14' wouldn't be a problem on your evaporator. I wish my 2x8 was a 2x12 with a 9' syrup pan. I bet Leader would growl if I ordered a set up 2x12 pans thinking I was crazy.
The 4x12 sounds like a good deal if the pans haven't been used much and with new stack.
yea i do plan on collage uvm and vtc for Dairy management, mine as well get some extra schooling on farming cause right now its a hard buisness to stay afloat in.Quote:
Originally Posted by gmcooper
Im going to call the guy with the 3 1/2 x 14 and go look at it, its only an hour away, and the 4x12 is 5 1/2 hrs away, so it would be worth the trip to at least look at the rig.
Theron,
I have enough wood to do around 600 gal of finished syrup. That will require colecting 30,000 gals of sap. I have a source to get some kiln dried wood in season if I need it. I am hoping to go to vac and RO next year. But that is going to require a lot of things to happen. If it does I will have to work 12 hrs a day till I tap. Also the main line I installed this year has the potential for an other 800 taps. then I Think I sould run an other main and add another 1500 the following year. that would give me 4500 on one bush. then there is another 25 acres across the creek that I could get 2000-2500 on. They could be brought to the same location as my bush that I am currently working. I have all kinds of growth potential.
hey i want a bush like that, there is only 1 in waitsfield thats unused that big well 3000 taps but the guy wont let any one tap it , my uncle taps 300 of his trees but he only let u put 1 per tree no matter the size, he let another farmer tap it all and the tank ran over once and the guy made him pull all the pipe out in his first year using the bush
Dave, glad to see you've reconsidered and are thinking about an RO in the future! Certainly a necessity when you start adding all those taps, no matter what size evaporator you get.
Did you get to do any trapping this fall?
Tim
Tim,
I almost got an RO this fall but decided that it would be better to wait at least one more year. as i am sure you know how difficult it can be to lay out that kind of cash.
I haven't done any trapping yet this season. things have been kind of complicated for me of late., and have been working thru it. I plan on doing some beaver trapping after Christmas. I ma even set some canine snares not sure. If i can get every thing ready ,and we have a real January thaw I my try to make syrup. I still have a ways to go to get to that point though.
Update from BIGSAP INC- Got quite a bit done over the weekend. Added two lateral mainlines on my side of the road. One was needed to pick up some taps and reduce some real long lats and the other was just to reduce some long lats that were real nice trees and the lats were just not doing those trees justice. I think I have an evenings worth of mainline connections to do. Then an evening of saddles and maybe a day misc and I should have my side of the road done. Then across the road I have mainly drops and saddles to do so that should be pretty easy. Bunch of clamps too. Put in a releaser. Hope to be all done end of month hopefully. Im hoping to get some money and maybe go up to the bush I was going to run the bucket line and just tube it in for gravity. I just wont know if I can till I see on the money. That could give me another 700-1200 taps on tube if I could. If I do Im naming the bush from this day forth the Brandon bush becouse Im stealing his Ideas on the long loaded laterals. I know hes right on the performance running it gravity that way and itll be easy for me this year to just run the long laterals and just cut in drops. Ill do it catering to how I want it to look when I change it to vac but it would give me some more sap easy for now. Do you guys think I should get an exact tap count when I get done? Like how many honest taps, cull trees, ones on gravity, ones on vac, buckets, etc when I get some time so we can see how stuff performs or to heck with it and just fill barrells? Theeron
Theron,
In the interest of proper research and learning all we can about procedures for sap production etc, it is absolutely necessary that we have a complete and accurate count of taps. We need definitions of what a "cull" tree is. we need to know how many of each kind of tap are at what elevations on the slope and in which direction the slopes and taps face. We will need to know the complete weather from last May 1 through the entire sugaring season. You will need to keep records on an hourly basis of how fast the realeasers are dumping. We will need to know the depth of the tapholes on the various tree types. What do you mean Barrels? Your job is to learn the ins and outs of making Big Sap!!!! Oh, don't forget to keep an accurate record on vacuum fluctuations.......:)
Theron,
As long as you have good slope, it should work good. I like the long laterals better for me as I have seen a significant increase last year in sugar content and sap quality over the black mainlines as it keeps the bacteria levels much lower in the lines. No, I should sap when the sap is running, it is running so fast it scares the bacteria to death. LOL!
Brandon- Im a vac man through and through but I like the idea of running that bush that way for this year for ease of installation and money etc. I would definitely run my tube differently if I had no ideas of running vac. I read a bunch of those studies the governor had posted and there is definitely something to the long loaded lats on gravity. Our problem here is without vac some years we just get totally skunked so ill always run vac but Ill let you know how that bush performs if I can get it in. Im thinking Im going to run 50 taps per lat. Im just going to hook up trees. Has to be easy if I do it becouse my shoulders and elbows are killing me. Hey, it wont cost too much and whatever I get is all bonus. Doug- Ill get you some numbers to some extent. Itll just depend on how up against the clock I get. Main objective is a lot of full barrells. I know your just giving me crap anyway. It would be neat to see how I average across the board with the different stuff going on. One thing Im curious to watch is the difference in the saddles Ive installed. Last year I ran all cdl clip on ones and this year I have a bunch of the older style cdl ones with the two tilewraps. Brandon- Your going to be famous now up here with a bush named after you. Ill even keep the name once I put it to vac. Theron
Theron, I realize you are trying to put in more new taps than the Canadians this year. But, A steady Controled growth plan will serve you better than a "I have to tap every thing in sight because I can't stand to look at a maple tree in March without a tap in It" Plan. This bush that you are wanting to run long laterails in, would serve you better if you did every thing by the book. When you put vacuum in it will have cost you less, and have less work and a greater reward. Any job worth doing is worth doing right the first time.
definatly do every thing by the book, wheni was learning last year and i did some things by the book and others i didnt, i ended up replacing things in the middle of runs it was a pain, i learned to just do it right the 1st time especially if you plan to do vacuum,
Hey PA,
I agree with DaveY, if you can't do it right the first time, hold off until you can. That first attempt is is just wasted $$$'s.
Don't look at the # of barrels, look at what mother nature will give you and call it good.
We made 37.5 gallons last year and we would like to make 40 on the same # of taps, but if we make less than last year, oh well!
Anyway, you no doubt are doing it right and you would like to make a living at sugaring.
Kodos to you and I wish you the best doing it!! :-)
Snowing here, 3" on the ground and still falling.
Dave
Guys- I agree with you guys a 100%. I figure the stuff at my house on the pump is my main setup and that is 100%. Whatever those trees are capable of will be gotten. My thought on the other bush is something that will be deliberately tubed to cater to the vac setup maybe next year. The lats will run such that they can be halved and run into mainlines. It may not end up quite as perfect but Im waying that out. I know my business model seems a little unconventional but I cant help the feelings of extreme anxiety and mental anguish I have when I think I may have forgotten a tree somewhere. These syrup prices are cause for desperate measures. Im still picking up buckets too. Ill have to see what happens. I dont even know what Im going to do half the time so theres no telling whats going to happen. I do have a question for you guys though. ON gravity do you think a used 7/16 plastic spile will out perform a new 5/16 one? Theron.
Theron,
Breath, exhale, think, repeat!
Yes. Try to relax and think of those untapped trees as room for future expansion.
If you use them all up now, how can you obsessively add taps in the future! You will be bored if you just have to live with the status quo.
Dave- I appreciate you guys giving me good common sense advise and I know you guys are probly right but Ive never made any claims to be rational. Im going with Parker on my business plan. I think him and I really connect somehow. He says you gotta WAAAAAAAANNNNNNT IT!!! BIGSAP UPDATES and BIGSAP weather alerts right around the corner. Theron
Theron; from our limited experence I have found that there is not a noticable diffrence between 5/16 and 7/16 on natural flow.
Jim
what is this BIGSAP thing all about??????