Freezing the trees up here -20 last night and plus the wind . wont be tapping for a other month or begining of march hear . depends on the weather.
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Freezing the trees up here -20 last night and plus the wind . wont be tapping for a other month or begining of march hear . depends on the weather.
jim
Isn't that hollow core nylon nice. I have been using it for years and it is great. Cut it to any length you need. Some times I will useit to hold long laterals to keep tension off of the fittings and also it works good where I need to put in the 5/16 quick couplings so it doesn't leak vac.
Keith
Jim and Keith- is there any particular size/brand of the braided nylon that you use? I love the stuff also...I know you can get it at the maple supply houses but not sure what size it is so I can grab some at Lowes or TSC.
one month till tappn and sappn...was -10 here this AM...still some thawing to do...
I just bought some yellow braided nylon rope at home depot... its maybe 3/8" or something. it works great, Got another 1500' of 5/16 today.. cold and deep snow... kept putting off until it got warmer. I'm about 2/3rds through the bug bush.. I may go a few nights(late afternoon) this week and hopefully finish up the laterals by next sunday... then tye ins to the mains and drops after that.
forgot to take my add meds this morning, with out them i have absolutly no drive what so ever to hang tubing, took them at about 12 and was heading into the woods at about 2, got up there it was a balmy 3 out, put up a few taps worth and it just didnt feel right up in the woods, i just didnt feel like i belonged up there today, i dont know what it was or why but its kinda like the woods didnt want me up there today,call me crazy but it was kinda erie and the wind kept picking up and then dying down to the calmest quietest day ive ever seen, things were absolutely still, and silent until the wind would suddenly pick up again, some thing was sketchy and i didnt like it so i packed up and headed out, when i got down to the house about 1/8 mile away, it was fine out side a steady light breeze and starting to snow, i couldnt figure it out, maybe its because im loosing sleep worrying about weather im going to be ready in time for sap flow, i dont know, i think im going insane, has any one else had any times in your woods like that? or am i really just going insane............:confused:
Dan,
Yep some days are much better than others and fighting a bad day not a good thing.
Sat. had a great day at the NWPA maple meeting. Great talk by Gary Graham about sugar house ascetics and awareness on how to control lead in syrup. Saw lots of friends and folks that browse the trader like I do.
Also interviewed by local magazine write for a article that will come out in early March about making maple syrup. Oops forgot to mention the trader. Maybe I can get her to slip in that plug too?
I put together 25 adjusters loops for the short run tubing system.
Cleaned a little in the sugar house. Thanks to Nate for getting a pile of buckets out of the way.
Ordered new rear Super Lug tires for Mikes garden tractor tonight. Trying to keep him interested in mechanical things. Its a little 10 hp Wheel-Horse model A-100 that we have been puttering with. New beefer lug tires will replace the original dry rotted turf tires.
Chris
Last year we ran our 3/4" main line through a culvert under a snowmobile trail. It repeatedly froze up and would not thaw out till after noon, even on vacuum. I was planning to run a dry line this year to fix that problem but I still would have had to take the main line down every year as it ran close to the ground through a cow field.
Grabbed the crew and went at it yesterday. We figured we had enough slope that by climbing a few trees 25' up we could run it over the road and high enough through the field so we could bypass the culvert and leave the line up year round.
We have the cable strung and it worked out better than anticipated. 20'-25' off the ground at the trail crossing with good slope the entire way. Now we will have to go back and drop the line to attach the main line. I realize this will take some effort and climbing but at least we know it is workable.
I don't "need" to add the dry line now but this is my best opportunity to do so. Once I get the mainline in place I hope I don't have to revisit it for 5+ years.
I just love permanent fixes and don't mind spending time and energy on them. It is the stuff you redo every year that becomes a chore.
Mark.
We attended the Lanark District OMSPA meeting on Saturday. There was an interesting presentation from the Lapierre rep to introduce their new Force 5 Hurricane evaporator. Bruce Gillilan from Leader also gave a good talk about increasing sap yield using wet/dry and disposable spout extensions. We accepted the Sugarmaker of the Year award that the district awarded in my father's memory. Other interesting presentations were given on various research topics being done by Centre Acer, Proctor etc...
Yesterday we got the new smokestack base on the arch, shovelled the roof of the sugar camp, finished the sap ladder over the road to our new bush and put up a roll's worth of tubing to replace some ancient tubing that wasn't worth putting up.
There's up to 2' of soft, fluffy snow in the bush. Hopefully we get a normal spring and will tap the first couple weeks of March.
Ennis-congrats on the award
Plumbed the vacuum pump and ran a pump line to the releaser in the woods yesterday. Going to add a few more taps and then its on to the evaporator. Give her a good cleaning, test fire a boil or two to figure out the floats and I should be all set.
Oh yea, have to wash and get ready 100 or so buckets for the roadsides, clean the pick-up tank ,get the transfer pump ready, hook up releaser....
Good thing I have two weeks
so i drove to school yestarday for the 1st time. and am able to leave a period early to go work ing the woods. so i park in the peoples drive way where the tank is going, i get out of the car and i can hear some sort of diesel behemouthe up in the woods, so i get my stuff on and walk to the top of the sugar woods, and its very close, so i walk into the soft maple on the proporty next to the sugar woods and 200ft from the property line theres mike merino with a brandy new tiger cat 640 skidder, i hadnt figured out who owned the land but wanted to next fall and tapt the 200 taps worth of soft maple next year if i could, gues not:(. but i had a couple of logs on a steep side hill i couldnt get w/ the tractor, im gunna find him in the woods on thurs, and hes going to take his tiger cat over into my sugar woods and hes going to winch them out for me, hes not going to charge me a dime, i will offer to help him limb trees or unhook chockers for a couple hours in return, i feel like i aughta give some thing back, but any way the soft maples are going to be gone by next week, oh well i will go get the tops for sugar wood for next year when he is all done.