Happy New Year
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Happy New Year
dschultz Dang I thought I would be maybe 30 or 40 on the thread but second.............YIPPY SKIPPY Happy new Year I going to bedZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZ
Heading out to put on drops... hoping to do 600 today. Then a bunch more tomorrow should finish up all new drops for this year. All I have left is the manifolds..... plus this that and the other.
Happy new year to all and may all your sap be 4%, and plentiful!!! Go forth and make syrup.
Going out today to run another, branch line, adding hopefully around 150 more taps minimum. Planning my first sap ladder. Have not yet decided which type to do. Thinking I'll run the branch and then get the exact lift needed and then will be asking lots of questions.
Weather is warm..snow is sticky so going to do some tubing repairs.
happy new year! i believe the sap is running today =] no snow though, need it back beforee tapping starts. the race is in its almost tapping time!!!
We have warm spring like temps with lots of rain. Snow is almost all gone. Eric said it felt like we should be tapping. I am sure the trees might run a little today.
I will be working on the AOF input piping system today. Basicly 2 inch PVC to run from the evaporator to the outside of the sugarhouse.
Happy New Year to all!
Regards,
Chris
i spent the first day of the new year working on the sugarhouse.i got all the osb on the walls,put my rollup door tracks up and started working on my head tank.tomorrow,i,ll be finishing that and more.
it,s 51 degrees right now 7:30pm and the snow is melting fast.i wouldn,t be surprized to see bare ground in the morning.
delbert
Happy new year everybody. Less than 2 months left now... got to get finished!!! You know when it starts to closer as the trader picks up more and more everytime I come on there are new posts.
Got All my new drops made, switching out T's but ran out about 50+ short. Ordering them tomorrow. I put together the all my saddles but I don't think I have enough so I'll add on a few more of those to my order. Hopefully thats it, maybe an extra roll of tubing just to have some on hand just in case a tree comes down over the winter. And a few clear seasonal spouts for the gravity tubing. Hopefully that will be all I need.
Tomorrow I'll start to get as saddles done and then start putting in drops. Gonna make a nice drop carrier out of a concrete tube I have left over just gonna put on a strap and cut a circle for the bottom. Once thats done well..... the list goes on. hopefully done in 2 weeks or so.
with all this warm weather I am sure the sap is flowing!!! the maple bug is diggin in ...watching maple videos on you tube!!!!:) and gettin excited.
I ended my 2010 year by fishing for Steelhead on the SR. Was a great day on the river. Landed several nice steelhead and fished in 50 degree weather cant beat that deal. Time to do some maple inventory and get some glass and jugs ordered up. Thinking about pulling the plug and buying a filter press. Hope everyone had a safe and happy 1st.
My dad said he would finish welding up my one handed tubing tool tonight. Hopefuly it won't rain during the day so I can start hanging laterals tommorow.
I finished running a re routed run from my old gravity system to my vav tank, had to raise the lines at an anchor tree about 4.5' higher, now I get to the tank at 2% slope and no sap ladder needed on that run. I'll either need to tap 2 trees real high, skip them (3-4 taps) or tap low and have a single lateral as a sap ladder. Did anyone ever try that, lateral tapped below the main and climb about 4' to the main, seems like it should work (roadside trees)? Then I ran a new branch, 300', will be about 7' sap ladder.
I have not yet studied the types of sap ladder. I am familiar with the ones using star fittings, but any other type I do not know. Any input on which will be best to use, about 75-85 taps on this one. Today I will add another branch with another sap ladder needed, maybe 5-6' and another 50-60 taps. I had thought I could do these as 1 branch but as I routed the branch I decided 2 would be better because at one point the terrain rises too high and to go around would use about 75-100' more 3/4" branch and at 2% rise that would have made the rest harder to run. I also have a small section of less than 10 taps that would need another sap ladder. I'm not sure it would be cost effective, but one of the trees is about 18-20" at waist height, is a corner tree surrounded on about 2/3 by open field and has a huge canopy, the sap% could be the highest of any of my trees. Next I'll need to get enough 5/16 tubing for laterals and drops. Once I get these sections finished, hopefully by next weekend I will re route another branch, eliminating lots of long runs on laterals in another section and adding about another 25-30 taps along the way because of running thru a section that previously was not tapped.
Right now it is raining but is supposed to be dry after another hour or two. In the last few days we have lost a lot of snow, with temps in the mid to high 40's 2 of those days. Today it calls for mid 30's and it only dropped to 33 overnight, that and some rain during the night should have the snow down even more. Except where it is drifted most sections in the woods are either bare or only 3-4".
Headed out to the woods to run more lats today. Spent all day yesterday hanging mainline and finishing the siding on the sugar house. Nice weather yesterday, sunny so far today. Also planning to dig the footings for the evap. so we can pour that in the next few days. Might move the head tank into place today as well but not sure yet.
Going out again after breakfast to do drops.... all I have left for fittings is enough to do 250 after that I will know how many more fittings to buy. I should have that done by noon and then on to putting in the meter box for my sap station.
Happy New Year Traders. Was driving by a recycling plant in Medina and saw a load of plastic buckets. Went in and inquired and found they were moving to Cleveland. Bought 215 five gal buckets w/ lids for fifty cents EACH!!!! They were from Smuckers and held strawberry juice! What a great start to the new year! :)
Great find! good for you, assuming you are on buckets. If you have enough extras you might be able to sell a few to get your cost to ZERO.
Today I finished 2 branch lines, strun a new l branch until I ran out of tubing. Then I came home and made up 50 drops. Wilol make 50 more tomorrow and again on Tuesday. Then I need to go buy 3 more 3/4 x 300' coils of 30P and several coils of 5/16 in 30P for my new laterals. Next weekend I want to finish my new branch, and then move on to adding a new branch to split a section I have had for 4 years. Most runs have 8-12 taps, I will split it with a new branch along the mid point and remove half from the old line. I really messed up the way I originally designed it. The old line went up road side picking up the trees there and then each line went across a section of thichk growth with no maples, and on the other side I hit good maple concentrations again. I sort of got where I was because I started with about 3 laterals thru there and thought that would be it. As I expanded to do more I just added more thru the jungle. Proper planning would have run another branch up the back side with all short laterals but with 5-6 taps each and good slope, but I never changed to make it more efficient til now. I must have spenti far more in 5/16 traversing the 100-120' wide non maple section than I would have with an extra branch line. Live and learn. Hopefully I can see these things during the planning stage in the future. This new branch will also run past an added 15-20 new tas as a bonus, ones that were too far to justify a line before. Now it will be just 100-150' from my vac tank, vac pump and my center of operation. I guess this demonstrates the saying that "we get too soon old and too late smart".
mapleflats keep up the good work, Its been a very cold day in michigan, But I finally got started, working on my first woods. Deer tore threw alot of it. So I've been restreching and spicing back together. Tomarrow will be 1 woods done and 7 more to go.
shane
I finaly got my dad to weld up a tubing tool today. I still need to clean it up and paint it but it works for now. Now if I get off the trader I can start making droplines.
Ran more tubing this morning. Dug the holes for the evaporator footings as well. In for lunch now then back out to put in some saddles. Once this spot is done ill be up to 230+ taps.
started reparing another woods today, but a snow storm came and I had to quit early.
I guess Ill wait and see what tomarrow brings.
I got the sides of the wood shed all framed up so tommarow I can nail the pine boards on.Hopefully get the rafters up thursday before the snow comes on friday.If we do get snow the weekend will be shot because I will be plowing all day.
Made up another 150 drops today and tomorrow is the day. we are going to start running the laterals. shooting for 600 this year.
Out of mainline for now. My tap count right now is 171. Ill be able to hit 250 easy and could get to 300 with alittle more work. Not sure if ill get there because I still have to install the evap and head tank. Lots of little stuff needs to be finished now.
3 cord of wood all set to go with another 3 that could be used if necessary (and I don't need it for the house).
Went to Bascom's and got a few things for the new-to-me evaporator - pan gasket, blanket & thermometer. Along with a few filters a backup hydrometer and some pint bottles I think I should be all set.
Also thanks to Todd (THCPrecision) I have a base stack that works perfectly with the current stack in my sugarshack. Still need to connect it but the hard part is over.
I also was able to hook up my sap tank to the evaporator with 1-1/4" line.
Two things left to do... wire the blower for the evaporator. Have everything I need, just need time to get out there and do it. Hook up the gas finisher to the 100lb propane tank outside the shack. Cousin should be coming to do that sometime this month.
It's only January 4th and I'm nearly 100% ready for the season. How often does that happen???!!! :)
Hope everyone else is almost finished with their prep work!
Keith
Shane- Just wondered what your taps and systems consist of. Are all the taps on tubing and vacuum and whatnot or do you have some buckets and that sort of thing? Hows the Ro research coming along? Theron
Quote:
Originally Posted by PATheron
Theron, the ro I finally got it plumbed up and ran some water through it I still dont know how much fluid it will do an hour. I found out it doesnt need a recirculation pump. Thank you for the help. Ive been doing alot of trial by air. As far as the woods go I have 3 on vacume 4 on diaphram pumps and one on buckets around 1300 or so, I wish the land owner would let me put tubing in it but he likes to hunt and doesnt want to walk over it.
Theron have you started looking over lines? Deer up here are terriable. Squarlls aren't as bad this year, but I think the hunters scared the crap out of the deer and tore alot of it down and snapped the 5/16 line in 2.
Without an R.O. last year, on 10,000 taps. Alot of sleepless nights I would imagine.
Last year I had 7000 taps but still not much sleep thats why I have 2 evaporators and 2 wood loaders. hooking the ro to the 6x20 cut down boiling, The 5x16 has a piggyback that does a lot of shivering when coal is in the arch.
shane, how much time do you spend each day gathering? How many people are helping you?
Shane- Ive been over most of my lines and I have had a good bit of damage but I think Ive got the heavies taken care of. I think your operation sounds pretty cool. Your kind of doing things as you can afford to like everyone else. Your going to love an RO. If you were doing that kind of volume without one your going to be a force to reckon with with one. Down here I did 5000 taps last year, all on vacuum with a 3 by 10 evaperator. The RO changes everything. What is a diaphram pump? Theron
I have lots of tubing damage this year including a bunch of laterals on the ground where something chewed straight through the tubing on the end tree and now have a lot of runs laying on the ground. Some end trees I used the end Y's with the solid barbs also so the darn tube never had sap in it , ever. Oh well, by the looks of some of them I am looking for a Porky as well as squirrels.
Picking up some cage tanks to be used for my filtrate water coming from RO. I know there a pain to clean but will have to make due for this year. It will only be water and not sap so they shouldnt slime up to quickly.
Need a few more rolls of tube at the show this weekend. 'Found' another grove of maples hiding in some pines in the corner of my property so they're getting drilled also.
Spent last weekend on working on tubing, except for rainy Saturday. Fixed a bunch, added some mainline and got our first real sap ladder up, several more to go.
And yes I put the wire ties on when it was at ground level, but a section of pipe rolled on top of the wire, so I had to lean the ladder up and fix it!
Isn't that awesome to be leaning a ladder against the wire?? Add a little breeze and it gives you this nice funny feeling in your gut that soemthing you are doing is just not right!
I had to run a mainline over a driveway to the neighbors and had no way to "Safely" do it so I just leaned the ladder against the wire. 15' in the air.
Before the mainline was up it looked like the ladder was standing up all by it self!
Dennis, instead of attaching the pipe in the air, I pulled the wire out between the trees, cut it, put a loop in one end, chained it to the tree. Then I attached the strainer to the other end and cinched the wire up with a ratchet strap. Next I started tying the pipe on, put a chinese finger on it and pulled it tight with another ratchet strap. Finished tying the pipe on, with all this being done about 4ft off the ground. Next I let it all loose and hoisted up the fixed end, then the strainer/ ratchet end and tightened it up. The only reason I had to use the ladder precariously was because a bit of the pipe rolled over the wire, creating a potential high spot for sap.
Got up some pine boards on the woodshed today should be done tommarow still plenty to do before tapping around 40 days left to get everything together lets hope for a good year and some good luck
I got my 2 gal pails today for storing syrup in. Cleaned up the filter press, I can say that thing will be the cats meow for filtering syrup.
I got the sp22 back into its vac shed. I pulled it out to see how my little bb2 worked, not as good as I thought. With the Bender milk receiver the little bb2 just couldn't keep the vac much above 17" of vac.
While I was putting the Sp22 back I couldn't get the motor to get up to speed. It just didn't have the torque. It was the original Surge 1.65HP motor. So I ordered a new 2 HP Dayton. Now we are back in business.
I was thinking about getting the Surge motor rebuild but the guy where I got the Dayton from told me that by the time I get it rebuilt with new windings and slip rings and what not that I could buy a new 2 HP Dayton again. So it may be off to the recycle pile.
So right now I am sitting pretty good with stuff being ready.
We've been cleaning up the trails, and the snow is a perfect hard styrofoam consistency. Makes it great for walking around. All the puddles are frozen too. Lots of deer tracks and poop. They were scarce during the season, but it looks like a lot of them made it through just fine. It is nice to get out there and walk around. I think the sun is staying up just a little later already. I noticed that it went down at 4 just before Christmas and it's setting about 5 minutes later now.