January Journal

It can stop snowing here anytime also. Took me almost 5 hours to shovel the drive way and then had to go down the the road and start over again a bit. Snowplow never went by yet so will have to go down tonight and shovel one more time. Nice to have a long drive way until this time of the year.
I went out in the woods yesterday to dig up some metal and it's starting to pile up out there now also. Hopefully the deer make me some good trails again. I chose most of the trees I tapped last year on where the deer made trails. Turned out in places they were walking over dead fall and piles of dead trees that made it sort of hard walking come spring.

I've been on vacation since before Christmas and it's bee pretty productive.

I stripped and replaced the siding on the sugarhouse w/ shiplap. I also put in 3 windows which make a huge difference inside for natural light.

I put my high mainline up to get everything back to the SH. All I have left to do is side tie to set grade.

I pulled off the used mainline I use last year on 3 mainlines and will be replacing it w/ new stuff.

Scoped out a new mainline extension which should get me about 30+ taps.

I found another dozen taps where the new mainline went in that I wasn't planning on. I need to talk to my neighbor and see what he thinks about thinning in this area. If he's on board, then I'll have over 20 cull trees I'll be able to add in as well.

By the time I'm said and done, I may be pushing 500 taps this season. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to boil all this on a 2.5x8. I talked to work and they won't guarantee time off during the season...depends on work load...we'll see how this season works out.

Been working on the lines all weekend and just finished up the last of them a few minutes ago. What a nice feeling. Been working on them since last summer. Think right now Im somewhere close to 5100 taps. Seems like Ive put in a lot more becouse Ive been stretching out all over the place to get them. Got 650 across the road on the big trees, got 450 up near there that will run into the shed ( nice mix of trees) and got roughly 400 or a few more on the booy bush (pretty much all hedgerow trees). Now starting tomarrow its OPERATION HOOK UP AND FINETOON. Time to get things hooked up, get things tight, and get things finetuned. Gonna seem like being on break after stringing all that line. Four more weeks to tappin in. Hopin for the REALLY BIG SAP!!! Theron:)

All I could muster up energy for was to walk out back to see if the bush was still there. Been blowing near gale force and we've had lake effect snow blowing horizontally for 2 days. Won't be much to shovel or plow - blowing so hard it's going clear off our lot. Evaporator is out in the snow.

Think I'll write to Farmer's Almanac folks to see if I can get a refund.

My favorite maple drink is a 1/2 glass of rum then fill the rest of the glass with hot syrup out of the evaporator,,,I call that the "Rockwall",,,pretty sure that is what my ansestors drank when building the walls thru the woods around here.........All girls hockey all weekend.......hope to get in some maple soon.....

No wonder you guys like boiling all night. White or dark rum in case I get so addicted to maple I start drinking.

I got a little bad news today, the stand of maples that I was going to use buckets on is up for sale. So I am pretty sure it will be gone by tapping time.

I called to find what they wanted for it, All I can say is ouch!!! It is 25 acres and they want $250,000!!!!!! that is $10,000/acre!!!

I now have to call another guy to find out if I can get permission for that property, it is alot nicer than this one that I lost. He is just alot harder to get ahold of.

How many taps are on that 25 acre lot?
Keith

I didn't get anything maple done this weekend, spent all my time adding a half bath in the house. Sad thing is it's still not done. When working in a 150+ year old farm house, NOTHING is quick, easy or goes exactly as it should. At least none of my solder joints leaked, I was proud of that.

Okay Parker I am a rum fan myself and never tried it with hot syrup. Something just sounds wrong about that. However glass of ice and a half and half mixture is pretty darn good. Ken I use dark rum Cpt. Morgan Tattoo is my favorite. Got myself and all the fishcamps on the list plowed today. Started well before light and finished around 1:30. Never got to the sugarhouse or the bushes. Be on call rest of week and hopefully I will be done Friday morning to get some sleep in time for the conference in Verona. It marks the begining of the season for me. Shortly after that it's go time.