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Lots of Golden Delicate eh? I haven't had any this year, maybe I should *borrow* some from you for fair season lol ;-) Sounds like you're pretty busy and my own little microbush keeping me hopping. Right now waiting for 8l of tempestuous nearup to get down closer to 7. Then I have another 5.5l to hotpack. And another 60l out in the shack to begin boiling. Argh! I need to get myself cloned!
Barely 8am and already have had a fun-filled morning. While getting a jar out of the fridge it fell and fortunately landed intact. Closed the fridge door thinking all was fine when I heard that sound of something in the fridge shifting. Well, on its journey down that jar had glanced off of one of my 2l storage jars of batch #3, which I had been planning to hotpack today...
So I opened the door and there was a stove-in glass 2l jar. Perfectly good, perfectly clear syrup everywhere. After using a few favourite 4-letter words I emptied the bottom part of the fridge and began mopping up the mess :-( Thankfully the break happened while the door was closed so there weren't any shards of glass on the floor and basically just several large chunks inside the fridge. Now there is a tupperware tote half-full of hot water and syrup- soaked towels and cloths. All I can say is thank gawd I used to have a cleaning business so no shortage of stuff around!
Oh and the trees aren't running today. Yet. Thank gawd for small mercies.
Hope your day is less exciting than mine!
Also thankful for a day off but trees are down in sugar so maybe it's time...unless you
want dark syrup. There may still be a couple of runs yet?
We definitely want some dark syrup and will be pushing right to the end. With RO low sugar isn't too much of an issue - just dial the concentrate flow back to get your desired Brix and let it run longer. We were still a smidge over 2 Brix the other day but not sure what we're dealing with today. Once this freezing rain ends we should get a decent run overnight and into tomorrow. There's still some snow left in the woods and the ice on Bennett Lake is still solid so that creates a cold microclimate that allows us to get through some warm days.
Got caught up on last week's batch dark syrup this batch have 40G in storage. Pulled most of my taps yesterday. Trees budding here and Mega rain and ice storm here today. Will finish off what I have stored and call it a season.
Hopefully everybody is ok after the storm yesterday. We have been without power since early yesterday. Have every generator I own running right now. And went and bought another one as a backup. Sump pump is going off every 20 seconds. So can’t be without power.
Was able to go check on the camp and bush this morning and had a couple limbs down on laterals that pulled the tubing right off the tap. But other than that nothing too bad. Got the pump back up and running and am pulling the same vac I was before the storm. So thank god. Had 1000 gallons that I needed to boil yesterday but couldn’t so today will be busy it’s running pretty good today as well.
Plan on shutting it down on Sunday and cleaning up. I can’t imagine it will be fun trying to make syrup in 20 degree weather next week.
Sounds like you had fun, Brickie! Very lucky in that I had fairly little tree damage and only lost power for 2 hrs last night.
My trees still running and producing clear clean sap, though the little bush maples are slowing down but the bigger trees picking up the slack. But with the crazy temps in the coming week it looks like my season will soon be over too. They're pretty obvious about it; they either start to dry or produce sap that's definitely off. A little bummed that I got no Light this year, nothin but borin old Amber, currently Dark underway. Ah well.
So I learned a lesson today.. when cutting a tree limb off a syrup line, watch out for line spring back.. as soon as the limb fell off the line, up came the line right into the chainsaw blade! ��
It was a quick repair but I'm keeping that section of line as a reminder.
Have tons of tree limbs down, mostly from my silvers that are tapped, but it's all high up the tree . No big trees came fully down at all ( just a few small ones, not maples except for one..but most two nice yellow birches).
Been out of power since 5pm on Wednesday.. still no estimate as to when it will come back.. had 300L in storage from Sat-wed already and have a other 100L in the barrel also.. haven't tested the new stuff yet but may end up dumping it.. the buds on the Silvers are getting quite big (partly why most of the damage is to the Silvers..they had big "hands" to catch all the ice with on Wednesday).
Jeez Paul, be careful out there!
Out here, some slight cloudiness in a few buckets so keeping an eye on those trees. Been taking a sip from each spile before I collect. Nearly got instant diabetes from one of my 2 taps on #6. Over 700l sap collected now, just got another 23l this afternoon. Trying to decide whether to fire up SW or wait til tomorrow, but then I might have 45 or 60 l to push. 154l collected for #5 so far. Doubtful I'll get a 6th batch this year. Ah well.
Small run here today (though we were done) and it looks like tomorrow ,Monday and Tuesday will be it with the forecast.
No bud formation yet .
Still running great here today again.I have more than i need ( actually too much!) and my equipment is all sterilized and packed away 'til next year.
I will be bottling this week and then it's brook trout fishing and firewood!
Smaller but steady runs, still getting about 30l a day. Only one tree has dried up.
Quick question (to be cross-posted to The Sugar Inn)...how many of you have heard the old trope of sticking a hunk of wood in a spile hole, supposedly to prevent bugs and infection from setting it?
My neighbour, a total sugaring noob, told me that he did that to his trees after reading about doing it on the interwebz.
Knowing his background as a paramedic, I pointed out that with a wound, you have to flush it out.
'Yeah', he said, 'then you pack it'.
To which I retorted: 'Yeah, with something sterile, not bits of stick off the ground.' I had clearly got up his a$$ somewhat by then, so said no more (he's now a cop lol).
Still, where did this old wives tale originate?!
I sure wouldn’t do it. Only thing that goes in my tree hole is the spile.
Same here, and Bruce also backed me up on The Sugar Inn. But someone try telling this noob that. Taps 6 Freemans for 2 weeks using a kit from CT and now he's an expert lol
Very bad idea. Delays taphole closure and provides a place where microbes can get it and spread. The stick/dowel (whatever is put in the taphole) will collect water and rot, and create a place where rot can spread from. Just leave the taphole alone and the tree will be just fine.
I sure hope he thinks twice and does remove the sticks himself.
My trees are drying up fast, pulled half my spiles yesterday. Some trees still have perfect sap, but very little, and a couple of the keeners are still producing but it's getting cloudy. Ah well I have over 700l sap and 6 batches. Have a lot of hotpacking to do today and a final tally, along with finishing off #6.
It was a challenging weekend... power went out 3pm on Wednesday mid-boil. Thursday was spent cutting trees and limbs off of roads and mainlines and trying to rig up generators to complete the RO rinse and run vacuum pumps. Power came back on midday Friday. Then we noticed the concentrate in the flue pan had gone snotty and had to be dumped - that hurt to see the equivalent of 30+ gallons of syrup being wasted. The sap never really ran well through the weekend even though conditions were almost ideal. Sunday the syrup re-heater stopped working and had to replace the element. Sap was coming in at 1.5 Brix yesterday. I hope to have enough sap by later today to get one last, short boil and push as much sugar through as possible and hopefully get some Very Dark, assuming the pans don't turn on me again.
Overall it's been a 'Meh' season. The sap never really ran well. At least the syrup quality has been great. We had lots of equipment breakdowns to overcome and other challenges. Now I'm praying for this hot weather later in the week so I don't have to pull taps in the snow!
This was a weird season fpr sure. Started out with sky-high sugar content around 27:1 ratio, last batch was 41:1 :-/ Flow was pretty steady, no massive tsunamis or spikes in production like usual; this was also the very first year that I didn't have to break out the 5g collecting pails.
But the flavours are really good and I detect a slightly creamy/buttery note in #4 which I don't believe I've had before. Scraped together enough to do a 6th batch so may get a Very Dark out of it.
Had a decent boil last night and made some good Very Dark - Strong syrup to finish up the year. I boiled a few hundred gallons of permeate through behind the concentrate to get as many runoffs as possible. We ended up about 10% less than what is our 5 year average.
We definitely pushed to the absolute end. We got 250 gallons of rather ugly looking sap from one 1200 tap woods in 18 hours since we gathered yesterday afternoon. It will be used to flood the pans for the next few months.
Hey all, sorry for what ought to be a post in Classifieds, but I keep getting logged out.
If anyone is getting rid of their old 7/16ths sharkfins, let me know! I will gladly buy ones that are in good shape.
Shark fin? The metal ones? I have 20 you can have for postage. I also have 10 of the 7/16 metal bucket hanger taps.
OCHTO, that would be awesome. Will PM you my mailing address.
So last boil of the sap I had in the fridge.. about 200L (give or take) that I RO'd down to about 60 for fun (long story on the RO not working the way it should..so I just kept it running until I had it down). Made for a short 2.75 hour boil and the lights stuff I've made all year.
A new record for sap this year for me: 1,850 (not including the 30L in the buckets I just dumped because I had no room in the fridge! ). Sugar down a bit so likely not quite as much as last year, but estimating around 42-43L, compared to ~48 last year.
Make sure you spray down with bug spray when in your woods!
I pulled the rest of the tubing yesterday afternoon before starting a boil.. and this morning had to pull a dog tick and a deer tick off me. Neither were engorged, but the deer tick was deep and I ended up breaking off the head that is now still embedded in my skin. Time to find a walk-in so I can get that sucker remove before it gets infected. The little tick removal tool just couldn't grab the body so I pulled it off with what I through were small enough tweezers, but that wasn't the right call.. I'm going to get some correct tick tweezers for these times when the tool doesn't work..
That's my PSA for today! Have a great week everyone!
Oh Paul, you always manage to have all the fun! I once also broke off a tick head (the black legged kind I think) at the subdermal layer. Just sterilized the head of pin in a match and dug the head out, used a macro lens to ensure I got all the mouth parts. Then flushed it out. I also went on antibiotics just to be safe.
Nowadays I carry a tick-key with me on keychain. Knock on wood haven't had to use it yet. If I'm outdoors all day esp in any brush and am heading in for the evening, I always shake out my hair, brush off my clothes, usually leave footwear outside, then undress in the bathroom, give the clothes a good shake out over the bathtub, then leave them hanging in there. This seems to be working cause I haven't had a tick get embedded since I began doing this.
My sugar content was complete crap by the end of the season, a little p.o.'d. Ah well. From the 810l I finally got I have around 20l syrup. It would be 22l if I hadn't broken that 2l jar. Ah well. Always next year.
Funny though the tick key, even the small one wouldn't grab the tick.. it was so small, and definitely not engorge at all, that it just kept slipping through.. Even the dog tick, which is much bigger, I had a tough time with.
But yes I'm certainly going to remember those processes.. I usually always spray down my boots well, but I think I forget with everything I was trying to get done. Was out turkey scouting with my friend earlier in the day and was up early.. we pulled 5 dog ticks off him after he put up his blind.. one had already latched on.. Creepy little buggers.
So yes I think I'll head to a clinic today to see if they can get the rest out..it's behind my shoulder, and starting to show a red area around it, which I don't think should be the irritation we caused it while trying to get it out so probably should get antibiotics. Argh.. I'm too busy with work for this kind stuff..
Yeah true when ticks are tiny the tick keys are pretty much useless. You can always do what some friends of mine do and get some Guinea fowl, they eat the **** things. Pretty useful critters despite the noises they make and eggs that take a hammer drill to break open!
Be careful if they give you doxycycline, I found that stuff brutal.
Any of the cycline's they give you are brutal. You really have to follow the prescription label right to the letter and if you begin to have any side affect you need to contact your physician pronto.
Geez.. now you guys are scaring me.. :o
I had an awful time on the doxycycline, didn't hear anything about telling the doctor about side effects. Horrible metallic taste in the mouth, complete lack of energy, the squits, ugh. Nowadays if a med professional tells me they're going to put me on an antibiotic I always ask if it's doxy. And if it is, I tell them no frickin way. Give me any other antibiotic but not that.
Ok enough scaring poor Paul lol ;-) You may be ok. Yes, the doxy did make me better but only after being laid up for 2 weeks.
Don't want to say I'm disappointed with this year's crop. But apart from a batch of lighter Dark that doesn't have the usual robust flavours, everything is Amber. No Light at all. Think this is the first year that I've not had a really strong Dark or any Light. Thanks global warming :-/
Hmm. I don't think I've ever made light, even before switching to the lines, to be honest. I guess the trees give what they give!
So I've updated my estimate, and while a lot is still in the freezer I think it's all very close to being syrup that I should get around 49L, give or take.. so another record year on the books..:-)