October Journal

Ken not that I would try this but Duck tape has many uses. Maybe you could figure one out and get those guns polished off and put some meat in that freezer:lol: The lady of the house looked in the freezer today and said to me with a little smile " you better get busy there is alot more room in that freezer". Enough said I am getting after it hunny. As far as the sap, It is too warm yet. I could boil everthing I have gotten with one match. Heck I could probably even break that match in half and get it done. I think it will be a few weeks yet as there is still some 50's in the forecast with mid 30's at night.

How big is your guest house 3rgen. I have maple trees that still have green leaves here. I wonder has anybody else found this problem. The trees with leaves still are maples that preformed poorly last spring. The tree that turned yellow fastest gave up sap the best also. Just a thought.
Man it's dark out there in the mornings already. But the sun comes up a bit faster next week for some reason. But it goes down faster at night also.

Spent the weekend cutting down dead pines to finish clearing a path for new vacuum supply line. Some of these were 50' trees that had been dead for awhile, not fun to be cutting down. Had one big oak that was blown partially down and hung up. It took us close to two hours of cutting and pulling pieces with a tractor, cable and snatch blocks. We got 1,500' of 1.5" pipe unrolled at the end of yesterday, next up is stringing the wire and getting the pipe up on the wire.

I am just about done hunting. At least the pressure is off. I got two in the frezer now. If luck is with me maybe one more. Now I can start cutting wood for next year. But I will have a rifle in the RTV when in the woods. Talked with a tree cutter about having him directional fall some big pine for me when we get some snow. I am not real good at getting those trees to fall where they don't want to. I know I don't want any on my maples.

I agree Ken, The foiliage was a little strange this year. Every tree in my 4000tap bush only turned 1 color. Yellow. Not a single one had a slight bit of red or orange. Why is this? Does anyone know? The land owner said every other year there was good color. I am really curios why.

My trees here were all yellow as well i just figured it was all the rain. Came home one day and all the black walnuts trees dropped their leaves all at once and were still green as ever. Funny in the morning they were completely green then when i got home everyone of them were bare. KenW my guest house is my sugarhouse:D so if you stay in there im putting you to work and you can bring your guns.

I'm putting lexan over the windows on the front of our sugarhouse. According to the guy at the glass place it will stop a bb, and won't shatter with something bigger. The window on the front door was shattered on Friday night by vandals. Probably a metal ball flung from a slingshot.

We don't want the place to be dark, but we need some kind of protection, so this might do the trick.

We may have caught something on camera too.

It is upsetting to have to have these kinds of security measures, but what choice do we have?

revi it is a shame for sure. We had the same problem at camp. What we did was take 3/4 plywood and make some shutter that closed and got padlocked. Did this many years ago and have not had any problems since. It is a pain to open all the locks and shutters but it is better than changing a window in a snowstorm. I will never understand vandalism.

Revi, my solution would be as follows : fix window, buy 12 gauge, sit around corner of suguar house friday night, use 12 gauge, fertilize sugar maples. No more broken windows.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Randy Brutkoski

I agree Ken, The foiliage was a little strange this year. Every tree in my 4000tap bush only turned 1 color. Yellow. Not a single one had a slight bit of red or orange. Why is this? Does anyone know? The land owner said every other year there was good color. I am really curios why.

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We've had this 2 years in a row. I read a while back that maples go orange and red when they are stressed - either drought, rodent damage, infected by insects etc... Yellow leaves mean your maples are healthy. I thought the yellow was odd last fall but after we had a record year this spring I now want yellow leaves!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mapleack

Revi, my solution would be as follows : fix window, buy 12 gauge, sit around corner of suguar house friday night, use 12 gauge, fertilize sugar maples. No more broken windows.

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It would be nice. I'll be up there on Saturday morning with a 12 gauge, but I'm hunting 4 leggers then.

I don't know what can be done, but I hope the lexan helps some with the vandalism. I'm installing it tomorrow.

I am trying not to get too upset about all this.

Wow Marty I hope that the leave color thing is true. My trees all turned yellow this year as well. The leaves seem to be hanging on longer too. Alot of sugar maples that should be bare by now still have most of the leaves on them.

I Am banking on a huge year then. 4000 to 5000 taps in that bush. Everything new in that bush this year. Hasnt been tapped since the early 60's. Costing me an arm and a leg to set up but it will pay off. All taps will have check valves too. Thanks Enis

I spent this weekend spliting some pine for the evaporator and cutting up pallets. I found a 4X14 evaporator I want to look at this weekend. I need a lot more wood cut and split if I get that. I talked to one of my dads friends with 5 acres of woods and he said I can tap whatever I want. This is going to be a good season. Thearon keep up the biggsap updates there amusing and interesting.

My brother and I got a bunch more work done on the weekend. The woodshed is 100% full and we Frankenstein'd some wood pallets together that needed to be fixed. We got a big limb over a mainline cut up, got the stacks down and in the camp, filled a bunch of syrup for a large order, placed the rest of the rebar for the knee wall in the new building and got the forms built and in place. The concrete should go in next week. We also moved some clear stone, put down patio stones and moved an 800 gallon Zero tank into place so we don't flood out the pump in one of our bushes again.

We just found out our RO membrane is passing sugar so there's an expense we hadn't counted on. Oh well, it pays for itself and the alternative is to boil raw sap, which I refuse to do anymore!

Wet, dreary day here. Not much fun to be in the woods. Spent a couple hours building a spinner to unroll my tubing. (The bigger stuff). I think I have something that will work on 300 and 500 foot rolls of inch and inch and a quata' tube. Got the idea over the weekend from the BIG SAP BARON. I will be able to suspend the spinner from my front end loader of the tractor or from a tree limb. After it quits raining, I'll give it a trial run or spin.
Been picking away at things here slowly. Hoping to have about 3500 tapped here at home next Spring and another 1200-1500 that I'll purchase sap from. Still need about 5 cord of wood but that has been moving right along. I need to get a 1200 foot airline in place and a 4000 foot pump line. Got a neighbor that suggested I lease his bush for next year so it looks like I won't be able to stop the expansions My wife did suggest that I did not need to keep up with Theron:lol:

Guys- Was wondering if one of you could help me. There was a guy on the classifieds with a 10 inch filter press for sale. Do any of you remember who it was or how I can reach him to see if its been sold? Thanks Theron

Theron, It was in NH craigslist, but I don't see it there anymore. I think it was selling for <$2000.

I did find this 7" double bank for $2000 in VT though.

http://burlington.craigslist.org/grd/1440321314.html

Josh

I just priced a new double bank 10" from Goodrich's for $2600 and that was with an air driven pump. So the used double 7 is no real deal.

Hey 3rdgen, did you catch the article in Farming about fall tapping? Just thought it might be of interest to you (and others). It is also by Tim Wilmot, who wrote about the red maples last winter.

Tim

Sapman not yet I have been checking the UVM website. Wilmots articles he writes in Farming is not linked there yet. Been waiting to read it though. If you got a link to it let me know. I still wondering if Im wasting my time or not, but I will try almost anything once. So far the weather is not cooperating but it is early yet I am hoping mid november it kicks in. I have been hunting my but off to fill the freezer and have done well so far. Hopefully by the time it starts to run it will be out of my system.

Okay maple maniacs another auction who's going? http://www.auctionzip.com/cgi-bin/au...302&category=0 There is a picture of an old evaporator in there.

Happy Halloween to all the maple kids.

Tough day today. I have been cuting wood along the river bottom and got the last load cut and loaded from that area and while heading out the wethole that I have driven through a thousand times decided to swallow me up. Tractor was in mud up to the X and so was the wood trailer. After alot of messing around and unloading the trailer to get the weight off it I got her home. I actually like the color of the tractor now. BROWN ha ha alot nicer than that green.

Well just about the end of October and I finally got started big time on the new evaporator. Broke down and rented a greenlee punch since I had to be in the town where I could rent one yesterday and punched all the holes I needed in a couple of hours useing a electric impact wrench. Sort of looks funney to see a nice SS pan full of 1 1/4 inch holes. Now to either buy a welder or solder in the drop tubes. Should be a experience to solder that many holes.
Pretty good weather so far this fall. Deer season opens tomorrow so should hear a few bangs out back from the deer hunters. These guys take deer season pretty seriously they built a new little house to sit in to replace the old one the wind caught one day and tore the roof off of. Carrots and apples are piled up by the truck load also.

Folks,
Man! new evaporators going in, new tubing systems being set up , new sugar bushes being evaluated, evaporators being improved. Deer being harvested, vandalism being resisted.
You guys are a busy bunch.
Great to live in this country where we can do all these things.

As I write this we have a wood fire going in the house to take off the chill of the raw, wet weather. We have 5 sticks of venison kielbasi cooking in the oven, (Eric arrowed an real nice 9 point {160 lb} on Monday morning) He will be making jerky tonight also. We still enjoy the work of processing our own deer and it allows us to work together on a project.

The 5 foot hand brake is back in the shop for redesign and rework. :)

Canned some goldenrod honey last night.

Cheryl is not real happy about the upcoming surgery.

Have a great Halloween,
Regards,
Chris

Take me years to get used to the way you guys count points on a deer around here. Out west a 9 point whitetail would be a weird deer. Of course I am still getting used to haveing to use glass to even see the horns on the deer around here. Owell time will tell if I learn or not.

Ken,
NW PA white tail rules: must have 4 points on one side to be legal for us old hunters ( kids can shoot about anything). This buck had 5 points on one side and 4 on the other. Hang in there, we are still learning the rules as they change them too:)

The venison kielbasi was great on a Ritz cracker with some Colby cheese and a little maple BBQ! Yummm.

Chris

sitting here making drops as my girls count their halloween loot. Finally got the rest of my sugar wood in today. Met with a landowner we have tapped in the past and talked to them about adding more tubing and tapping some of their reds- I would guess another 40-50 taps there. Picking up three of Parkers smaller bushes - so we should be close to 1000 taps by the time the season starts.

Spent most of this morning replacing all the braided poly line on the RO and trying to figure out how to get into the room in the barn- 2'6 door and a 40" wide machine...

Picked up a filter press on Thursday- getting geared up for BIGSAP here in Andover...four months left and still a tons to get done...

cheers-

eRic