January Journal

Maplewalnut, I thought you told me last year that you were maxed out with taps. It seems you found a few more.:lol:

Well back to school today after a couple weeks off. Man talk about tireing trying to speak french all day again. A couple words a day is okay but hours of it tires a person out. That and I was wearing my hearing aids all day and actually hearing things tires me out even more.
I went to a few stores looking for a fan control switch but didn't do well. The ones in all the stores here are for a ceiling fan and work on 5 amps. I need 15-20 amps to be on the safe side. Will have to ask a real electrician I guess.
Tired of snow also had to drive nice slippery roads today and that sucks.

worked a little on the new releaser tonight got all the parts machined about 45 min on the lathe started to put things togather the one a built for last year worked ok but dumped to slow and was to small for the amount of taps i tryed one idea did not work float was to small to brake 15 inchs of vacuum new one will have a vac cylinder and a slide valve if it works i will post pics

I will say that I am jealous of Dill's find. It's a nice bush in a managed forest so the trees are fairly spread out. Hopefully I can find something as good next year when I expand. If he doesn't find 500 trees, I'll be shocked. And I think more can be had on an adjacent property. From a quick scan of the property, vacuum would be needed to reach all parts of the orchard.

Alden, you are way, way, way far behind. Best of luck getting it all done in time.

I've been further behind, the first year I didn't start building an evaporator till march 10th.

I finally have something worth while to post maple related. I have finished the RO room. I have also cut in a cupola to the roof of my sugar barn. Two big items off the maple list. I posted a few pics in my photo bucket 2010 album. Looking forward to Verona tomorrow.

Finally finished my new bush up the road. That should bring me to 4,000 taps for this year. bottled 30 gals today, 20 on wednesday and hopefully I'll sell it all this weekend at the markets. still lots to do in the woods till I can tap. sprained ankle put me way behind, and soon a visit to the hospital for my annual you don't have cancer anymore biopsy. that usually knocks me down for a bit. got to go label bottles and load up the truck.

Got some more maple done last night. Cleaned up a couple releasers and test operated them and made up some boosters that I hope will help. Took 4 10' sections of 4" pvc and glued them up. Worked pretty good and appears to be a heck of a booster for the money. One thing really kicking my butt is trying to box up these releasers so they dont freeze. Always seems to be a pain for me. Its really hard to make something up with all the lines going into them and the way they dump. The horizontal ones seem way better dumping out the bottom but I have two verticle ones and theyre pretty much made to just dump into an open tank so then you have to have the lid up on the tank. I think as time goes by Id like to go to all horizontal ones. The one in the shed doesnt seem to freeze and the one across the road Im running power to a light bulb and I have that one boxed up so that gives me 4000 that ought to work. That still leaves me two that have to be baby sitted a lot mornings. Wish someone would invent a good fix to box them up. Theron

theron i do alot of water line we use what the call a hot box you can find them in just about any size the are used where water valves or meters have to be out side above ground

Jrthe- Never heard of one. You know where I can click on a pic of one so I can see if it might work for me? Theron