December Journal

maybe the flat pan is measured in acres?

I suppose if you built a 6'x60' evaporator, you could make a lot of syrup.

Gator- 50 acres of virgin maple you say? Holy cow, you need to get those babys tapped its an emergency! That probly equalls my whole operation and Ive had to run tube everywhere to put together 5000 taps. Keep hammering a 100 at a time, sooner or later they will all be hooked up. You are lucky they are clear up there or Id be sneaking tube into the woods in the dead of night or something. Theron

PATheron,

You would go nuts sneaking into woods up hear to tape trees!!! There arn't but 4 or 5 people that make syrup in this county. Other then a bunch that tap door yard trees for there own use. This hole county is full of untaped, never been taped, hillside after hill side of maple trees. I can hear you screaming all the way up hear.

Theron- all depends on how the tubing is set up,,I have seen 1000 tap opperation that only produced 50 gal syrup a year........you ask him how many gallons he made?
Wind is HOWLING here today-off to Brother Bobs to set up mainline on the mountian!!! ITS GONNA BE COLD!!! Cant wait.....:)

My brother and I managed to get some time in the bush over Christmas to cut into the To Do list. Other than a couple hours in our upper bush where we stretched a couple rolls of semi-rigid to replace some old purple Lamb tubing we worked on the new building.

- built a set of steps to get down into the building
- closed in the end of the old wall we tied the building into
- built a pretty cool looking platform for the releaser
- re-connected the mainlines to the building
- closed in the wall between the vacuum pump and the tank room
- closed in the gables at the rear of the building
- put old roofing steel on back wall for siding
- put tank up on 2x4's to level it
- wired lights

There's still lots to do but we should be ready for the BIIIG SAAAP in March!

went to FW webb for some stainless fittings to finish my bottler man that stuff is too expensive!!!

Did I mention I hate wind don't mind the cold in fact I like it. but oohhh that wind is terrible!!! 50F on sunday the high was 27F at 5:00am this morning and now its 13F who knows what the wind chill is 30-40 mile gusts. crazy!!!

My wife fancys him! Mike Rowe and I are about the same age...I keep telling her she doesn't need another "dirty" man. I wonder what he is going to find as "dirty" in the sugar house...other than the 1999 PB Calendar on the wall.:rolleyes:

theron i ran a 1000 last year 500 on vac on my 3x8 flat pans half a$$ ro for secong half of season

jrthe3 Did you end up selling the extra 500 taps sap to someone? i remember you saying that you were thinking about it last year cause the 1000 was to much, hope you got set up better this year ?


hope everone is doing good, Been cold here and windy may get into the woods tomorrow

Jrthe- Your making sap the same way Ive done it most of my life. I just never had a lot of taps like that. I like the way your not afraid to try to make things. I just looked on the tv and that dirty job episode is in Pa. Sounds like a bucket operation. Be fun to see though and where it is. Ive been wire tying line last couple nights, been real cold. Picked up a releaser for across the road today and some other supplies. Yesterday I got a 275 tote Im going to use and just for the heck of it I put it in my truck and filled it up and it hauled it real good. Im going to buy a regular truck tank for the truck. This will be the first year Ive ever trucked any sap. Hoping this is the last week for the lines. Im actually pretty excited to get them done. Talked to my buddy tonight and he says hes bringing me sap off of the better part of 2000 taps gravity. Thatll be in reallity pretty close to 7000 taps that supposedly are going to be boiled on a bare bones 3 by 10. Sounds a little crazy but Im going to give it a go. Cant wait, want to make BIG SYRUP!!! Theron