installed 47 taps today, good day, 25 out with out a cloud in the sky and no wind, i liked it out in the woods alot today, had fun even though it was just me out there
Printable View
installed 47 taps today, good day, 25 out with out a cloud in the sky and no wind, i liked it out in the woods alot today, had fun even though it was just me out there
Ah Dang it, Jim you were at the NY Conf? I sure would have liked to meet yeah. I left a little early to beat it back home before all the snow came in Scranton.
5 hrs of driving and about 3 1/2 of it was on snow covered I-81 oh what fun.
I did have a good time at the Conf though, I aslo got to meet Chris of "MapleGuys"
We picked up about a foot of snow here today. I worked in the woods for 3hrs finished my expansion today. that is a relief. Now i can wash and plumb tanks, install a couple of pumps put pipe up on a couple of road side bushes. get the sap hauler inspected. Yea I'm about ready to tap
Ahhhh locust wood...just love it. Dries quickly and burns real hot.
Brandon...try supplementing it with some cedar, I had some jumping sap last year with that combo. If it needed a kick start, in went a piece of pallet.
i like cedar and locust, thats when you need to have your cream or 1/2n1/2 on hand to control the flue pan!:D
Maplecrest, so plastic fittings are on the way out, eh? I assume this refers to any insert fittings? I know that anytime I go on service calls for jet pumps, I always replace the plastic fittings with brass ones. The plastic are often a source of a leak on the suction side, making it very similar to a vacuum situation.
I'll be sure to keep a close eye on my connections this year.
Tim
There's a new king pin in So. Maine.
Theron's on his way home after coming up for a bit last week. I couldn't have got it done with out his help. We (he) kicked some major butt. Tap count is through the roof. Big sap is something for you guys to shoot for but I'm going for Tsunami sap. More of a tidal wave effect than a slow flooding of lowlands.
I am going to single handidly drop the price of syrup when I hit the market. you guys might want to find out when I set the market so you can sell ahead of me and get a better price.
Good morning Matt,
Glad to see you back!!
So, what's the count!!!
Snowing up there??
Dave
Should be crowding 2500 this year all total.
Matt,
That should keep you off the streets!!!!!
Dave, Matt will be on the streets trucking sap from his sugar bush back to his sugar house. I won't be doing that anymore. My trees are all on my own land now and I only have to pump the sap up the hill. The sap hauler has been demoted to just wood hauler now.
Trucking will be my middle name this year for sure. That's ok. Bring it on. I might fire up the RO today to get it warmed up.
I tested a couple small reds behind the sugarhouse the other day. They were in the sun, it was 28 degrees and they were running. Sap was 2%.
The whole time we were working on Matts lines I was laughing inside thinking how screwed he would be. Cant wait till season. He should have some BIGSAP for sure. He'll get it in the barrells no prob he'll just be a little busy now and then. Itll be fun to see him scramble though. Jeff- I wonder if the plastic fittings are a prob if they are installed with the mainline tool? Maybe its just if they are put on by hand or heated becouse mine seem like a pretty good fix with them being put on cold with the tool they are basically pressed on. I guess maybe Ill find out becouse Ill be down to around 1.5 cfms this year and I have a ton of fittings with all the dry lines and valves etc. See how high the vac stays and that will tell the tale. Gotta hook some stuff up now, releaser, tanks etc, then if everythings complete were back to the taps. Stole a bunch of Matts stuff when I was up there gonna hit more trees till it warms up. BIGGGG-SAPPPPPPPPPP EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Theron
Well spent most of the last 24 hours dealing with snow. More storms for Tue. and Thur. and then an artic blast will be here so it looks like I won't be doing to much outside this week. Got some drops to replace so I'll probably make them up inside and wait for temps back to freezing or alittle over.
Keith
Matt...you the man! Are you running it with a one man show or are you recruiting some help?
I commandeered the kitchen today for making maple products.
A batch of Hot maple BBQ ,
batch of Reg maple BBQ ,
batch of Hot Maple Mustard and a
batch of Reg maple mustard (about 3.5 gallons of syrup).
Also canned a half gallon of some light syrup for a guy at work too.
Our granddaughter Marly and grandson Mike stopped over with there mom and I just had to make a batch of Marly's special PAP candy ( maple candy) She shoved it in about as fast as it cooled.
08 Syrup is just about gone it was a good 08 season, We are only a month or so away from starting to have some 09 syrup.
Chris
ALERT, ALERT!! This is a test of the emergency BIGSAP system. This is only a test. If this was a real alert it would be followed by tank cleaning recommendations, time and duration of potential sap flows etc. Just spied a potential run day on January 25th for the northeastern Pa area. 40 degree plus day. Could be the first run. Only thing is its on Accu (feelgood weather) so who knows. Ill be watching this developing situation like a hawk. More details to come. The(bigsapzar)roon.
Theron get those drill batteries charged and the tapping bit in the chuck. Don't want to miss a drop!
Theeeeeeron-
THat is something I have going with accuweather. I called and paid them a lot of money to put in some phoney weather for you to get you excited. Glad you are watching it like a hawk. Check the weather every 10-15 minutes incase the 15 day forecast changes.
Still spitting a little snow today. Glad the tubing is strung. Now when we get 100 feet of snow I don't have to work in it. Just drill little holes.
mike, this is a 1 man punishment band. I don't want any help they would just slow me down. I want to feel all the pain, so that I can say I earned it.
Tapping, walking lines, collecting and trucking sap, and processing it into barrels. I might be boiling in June in case any of you guys want to stop over when your season is done. I'll still have sap.
Matt,
I'll bet i am boiling as long as you . I may be pushing 3000 this year. Once I get sap I don't think I will see the bottoms of my tanks until it is long over.
Hey Dave are you going to make the meeting Edinboro in Jan/ Missed you last year!
Jim
Jim,
I am hoping to. But I don't know for sure. I want to go visit my daughter a weekend before sugaring starts and I am going to my sons the 30th of the month. So that leaves me little time on weekends. I guess I will have to get to work in the evenings.
well didnt do much yestarday, pulled some 3/4 main line out of a sugar woods thats going to get logged off, it was 15 outside yestarday morning maybe colder but that orange mainline was brittle because it was so cold, i was starting to have second thoughts about it but with only 250 feet to put up or so im just going to get it up there on a warm day, also i think im going to run some of it onto the nieghboring piece of property and pick up about 20 soft maple and 20 rock maple, and just keep pounding out the laterals after school and on the weekends
Theron,
It will take more than one 40+ day to get things thawed out after this artic blast we are getting this week.
Brandon,
I was going to tell him that also, but I didn't want to dash his hopes.
Im watching for a trend you guys. Ill have to see how the days start to line up. Probly a false alarm and thats all right, that will give me more time to get more taps in. Kind of want another 200 anyway. You guys know theres nothing I like better than BIGSAP. Cant wait to hear the first SPLUSH! Hope you guys are getting ready becouse I think this is going to be another humdinger year. I got that feeling. Theron
I'm going to the Ag Trade Fair in Augusta on Wednesday, but they didn't have all that much on Maple sugaring last year. I can't make it to the maple meetings, but I hope there's something cool to check out this year.
See you there. I'll probably get there around 3pm.
is a humbdinger year good? it is right? i hope so, it needs to be to pay off all this debt this thing called sugaring has laid on meQuote:
Originally Posted by PATheron
Dano- Humdinger means the sap is going to run HARRRRRRD!!! I just try to get everyone fired up like I am. What the heck, syrupin is supposed to be fun not serious. Theron
I got back in the woods today after a week off from tubing. Today was reengineering a 12 year old tubing layout to vacuum, tomorrow is adding new trees to the system. I have to make 100 droplines tonight. I'm not expecting to tap till Feb. this year. With as cold as it's going to get this week it will take awhile for the trees to thaw out.
I always take my fun serious !!!!!!
Theron that 40 degree is just the first day of the January thaw. It should be warm for at least 3 or 4 days after that one. Keep an eye on that forecast!
YAY! thats what i hoped it meaned, its fun until its 2 am and every one left the sugar house at 10 and youve been in there for 4 hours alone, then its not so much any more, but that was in my tent sugar house, this year im gunna have a real sugar house and the friends at school have already got plans to through a few big ol partys in it so we will seeQuote:
Originally Posted by PATheron
Dano2840 Thats when things go really bad. Anytime there is more than 6 people in my shack I need to have a babysitter in there. I cant consentrate on all the things that NEED to be done and I leave a crucial step out like filling the head tank or drawing off and thats when the big shiny brown bubbles start to form........YIKES
Thats when you should do your homework
PA,
I use the National Weather Service, Gray Maine to get the weather for here and it's pretty accurate.
I'm not sure what you need for your local weather, go to Gray, Maine and scroll out to where you are and click on the map and you'll have it.
Now, I'll give you a little hint, any forecast beyond three days is not very dependable and the further out it gets the less dependable it is, so your forecast for (I think) the 25th ain't worth squat!!
Sorry pal, but that's the truth of the matter.
Just for grins and chuckles try thank weather site.
Dave
Haynes,
Just curious how you clean out your pans with oven cleaner?? Do you use it on the syrup pan and flue pan and do you just spray it and then pressure what it out or what goes on and what kind do you use?? I am always curious to see how others do things.
Dano,
As Haynes said that's when things go real bad!!!!!
You've got to much invested to be having parties there!!!
If you start having parties there you will not get any customers while your boiling.
The public likes a nice clean and professional operation and I am sure you'll give them that!!
Only my thoughts, not trying to be a jerk here!
Dave
i like it best in the sugar house when it just me and my fire man any more people in there just get in the way and there to much hot stuff to be bumping into people
well this weekend if the snow not blowing to hard i going to start pulling blue in the woods it looks like it will be a fun year i will have all the time of the day to boil no job to worry about i tapping every tree that will stand still long enough for me to get a hole in it when the vac pump shows up i am hooking it to as many tree as i have time to
WVM From day 1 I could never get my flue pan clean by filling it with pan cleaner and scrubbing or soap. We would fill it up and boil the water and cleaner and scrub and swear. This year I broke it all down and was going to just power wash it and then it dawned on me that all the crud was both oily build up and minerals so I got to thinking when I clean my work bench with a solent like mineral spirits the spilled coke stays behind and that was what got me to spray E Z off oven cleaner on it. I had it standing on its end and with the $65 elec power washer it came out like new. Sprayed it on let it sit for about 1hr and out it came. I found trying to clean the pans with other cleaners the gunk would just jell back on and smear. I think a garden hose would work just fine. heating with oil I found that when I cleaned the bottom of the flues the soot would float and get all over the place so the oven cleaner help contain it and it didnt float on the water and spread.
I just read a book on maple sugaring and I realized that I am itching for the season to start again. Like baseball players wait for spring.
I still have a lot to do, so it can hold off a while.
We still need to put up some more taps.
It's getting near, though.