Happy New Year to all and I hope this year brings everyone tsunami sap.
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Happy New Year to all and I hope this year brings everyone tsunami sap.
3rd don't you have a life!!!! Some one delete my january journal 3rd beat me by 10 seconds.
Wow 8 minutes into the year and we already have the January journal started. My newyears reselution is expand my #of taps get a bigger evaporator and finish my sugar shack.
I have issues with insomnia. I get it quite often and have some sleepless nights then all of a sudden I hit a wall and you cant keep me awake. Gramps had it and so does my brother. Gator you are just mad I beat you by a minute lol.
I am!!! I was at work thinking I would get home and start the january journal looked forward to it all night.
30 days till operation tap off. Hopefully have all the lines up this weekend. Then its hook up tanks and releasers. Run electric to tank across the road. Make up the new vac pump. A lot of misc hooking things up but itll be a nice break from the lines. Cant wait till Jan 30th. START DRILLIN HOLES BABY!! Wish I could be completely ready a little early Id run some more taps but probly not reallistic. I might better get everything Ive got done a 100% Im hoping I can tap in in 5 days and then Ill still have 4 days that hopefully itll be frozen rock solid so no sap seeps into the lines and Im going to walk every single line looking for every leak I can find. Havent had time to shoot squirrells so theyve probly given me some pretty serious payback. Good thing is with 130 cfm's I ought to be able to hear a squirrell leak from inside the house with the tv turned up. Im going to sectionalize each area and only have the pump on those lines while Im on leak patrol. Need the big suck for those long runs Ive ran this year. Everybody better start getting ready pretty soon itll be time for BIGSAP WARNINGS in their areas from the EMERGENCY BIG SAP SYSTEM. Theron
Happy New Year all you sick traders!!!!!
Is there a doctor in the house??
Yes I think there is and he's as sick as we are!!!!!
PA,
We're all set here ready to go, our go time is anytime after the middle of February.
Added a few more taps this for this year, added the use of a 12 volt pump rather than dump buckets into the gathering tank.
Suck them line tanks right out ............ slick, I hope.
Should save us some time and work.
Got a bit of snow coming down, good day to hole up and take it easy!!
All you folks stay safe out there and enjoy the weekend!!!!
Dvae
up here in northern Ny were still running tube and not even close to being ready, still have to get the vac pumps ready and some more honda gas engines( SINCE I GOTTA RUN GAS AT THIS NEW BUSH)= I thought i could get electric from the neigbors but i guess theres no electric in the old sugarhouse next the bush, O well just run a big gas tank, Run 3-4 days before refill, shoulds pretty good to me, in at 1500 vac taps as of right now and should be at or close to 2000 on vac when done for this season and maybe 100 buckets? probably wont have time to collect= SCHOOL. Plan on tapping Last week in feb first week in march, but who knows all depedns on the weather, usally pretty cold up here in the mnts
hope everyone is doing good,
I usually put taps in early febuary, I live in southeast Pennsylvania it goes from all cold to all warm very quickly. Not to mention I tap alot of silvers. I expanded this year, graduated from kitchen stove to outside cinderblock evap. and went from 6 taps to 45 taps, big year for me!
Had a good day in my new sugar shack, insulated walls and ceiling in the finishing half and started the paneling. Tomorrow I rough in the plumbing. I am getting the itch real bad. Good thing I still have a lot to do.
Spent 3 hrs. up in the bush today resetting latterals and fixing deer/squirrel chew. Had a big old maple break from the top a couple weeks ago. Cleaned that mess up. One less tree to tap.:( Light snow today, about 12" in the woods so far. Won't be long now.
Got up this morning feeling quite sick(not a party animal) Sick headache and felt limp as a dishcloth. Alternated from recliner to bed all day. Didn't get on my feet til about 7:30 tonite. Have to get in shape got two pigs to butcher tomorrow. The son came up and he and the wife got everthing ready.Wanted to help but could'nt muster up the strength . He said save it for tomorrow,
guess we need someone to cut things up and make scrapple. Need a few things yet for maple and also got 40 road trees with huge tops on,have to figure out how to fit them in!!!
happy mapleing!!!
My new year's resolutions are to have a good sugar season without the hassles we had last year, lose 25 lbs. (the sugar season helps with that one) and to generally have a good time this year.
We walked around town in a snowstorm and it was nice today.
If that's a harbinger for the year, I'm okay with it so far.
Wow the yamaha grizzlys haul. My uncle come down to my farm with his yamaha grizzly 700. We went riding then put 2 sleds behind it and pulled them around the feild. Going 30mph on a hard plastic sled across a field can hurt but it was fun. I didn't get anything maple done but it was fun. I will work on my sugar shack all weekend. I did ring some pans on craigslist. They are stainless flatpans. I am going to call him tomorrow. It will be an improvment over the half pint.
You should have left a tall stump. I tapped a couple busted off trees. They gave sap. As long as the tree busted off after the summer.Quote:
Originally Posted by farmall h
Light snow here today and not as cold as last week. I cut up two bundles of slab wood my neighbor delivered the other day. One more bundle to go plus a pile of dry ones I hauled in last summer. Yesterday I started drilling out the rivets in the flue half of the arch to change the rusted out glavy sheet metal on that end of the arch. Put a pencil through the sides anywhere near the stack. Must have spent some summers with the stack open and rain coming down the pipe. No easier time to change it then now while I have all the bricks out of it. I have to find a sheet metal shop that can bend me up three pieces to fit using the old as a pattern. The bottom sheet looked OK from the underside but when I got it apart all the seam overlap was gone so that has to come out to. That piece runs all the way down the ramp to the blower wall at the back of the firebox. I could cut it at the top of the ramp but a joint there with the load of bricks it carries is probably not a good idea.
Kenwp, the old tree is in the wood pile for the outdoor boiler. At least the top anyway. I'm sure it still has sap in it. Removed the lines already. It must have been 200 yrs. old at least. Probably one of the oldest trees in the bush. I'll cremate the rest of her come summer time!
Sounds like the Tessier sugar shack is going to be really nice.
I'd love to check it out some time.
We are still snowed in up on the hill.
Slippery driving up there this morning!
I walked to the top of the hill with the dog in high boots on the last day of the year, but I think I'll need my snowshoes now.
The snow is really piling up now.
Not much focus on sugaring related activities the last several months, other than cutting wood.
My wife and I added some livestock to the maple farm -- 10 alpacas. They seem to draw a crowd now, and we're hoping they'll do the same come March.
Heading to VVS for the NYS Maple Conference next weekend. Time to re-focus priorities!
Greg
Starting to cut out all of the tree saver spouts and replacing them with stubbies. I wanted to wait to do this until temps were going to stay below freezing until tap time to help keep the new taps bacteria free. I wasn't thinking about my cold fingers when I came up with this plan in June.
Is Verona really next week end??? January 8th and 9th????
Well making it around the woods on crutches easier than I thought after knee surgery. Only a couple inches of snow on the ground and most places I need to work I can drive right up to on the ATV. Retightened a few lines and put a couple isolation valves in my mainline branches so I can find leaks easier. Ran tube to about 100 more taps. Going to overload the 2X6 this year thats for sure. Will be some long days boiling but I can't wait! I will have over 1000 gallons of storage at the sugarhouse and 300 gallons in the woods at the pump station. Probably only 6 weeks left before the drill fires up.
Another day in the sugar shack, most interior plumbing is done except setting the fixtures. Two thirds of the paneling is done. Found a small furnace in my shop today that I din't know I had. All in all a real good day. Unfortunately I think tomorrow will be dedicated to snow removal. 11" and counting so far, and supposed to snow all night and all day tomorrow. National Weather Service is predicting another 8" to 12" before it is done. Good luck to all others in coping with the storm. Revi come on over most any time. I am usually around most weekends.
Spent a few hours yesterday splitting wood, but ran out of space to stack it. Still have about 1.5 cords to split, but I have plenty on hand though. I have a lot of aluminum buckets that have lids too small for the galvanized buckets. So today I sorted them all out, separated, and marked the aluminum only ones-sure will beat digging through a pile to find the right ones come tapping day. Also cleaned all the taps and got them ready. All that is left to do is replace the pan gaskets and I am ready to go. Should only be a few more weeks here.
my wife is offically sick of hearing about maple!!!! everytime I bring it up she rolls her eyes. I told her I haven't been on the computer in a few days and she was like "oh what you must be going through... No mapletrader for 3 whole days!!!!" and she was right!!
burned through 2 tanks of gas on the saw yesterday on some pine (sick of being in the house eating junk) after you move pine logs around for a bit you forget how heavy oak is... went to bring some wood in the house wow that s heavy!!!
here it is I am naming it.. maple drink:
the sap boiler
1 oz maple liquer...(flag hill lee NH)
1/2 oz white creme de cocoa
1/2 oz dark or grade B syrup
put over ice shake or stir what ever you prefer
mmmmm good stuff if you like it a little less sweet just leave out the cocoa
I learnt my lesson. I don't say much about maple or school or Lodge anymore. Just sort of keep quiet and eat supper.
That drink will either rot off your teeth or give you another kind of addiction. I never thought of useing maple in a drink before.
I have been working outside when ever I can trying to catch up on my evaporator repair. Found out the hard way that slow is better then trying to do something fast. Takes a lot of time to fix mistakes.
Tapping time ... best cure for cabin fever around.
I have been tying up a bunch of loose ends, I only have about 4 weeks to tapping time.
I now have the new feed tank complete and plumbed in. I have a small elec pump that will pull from my milk tank and fill the feed tank. I have a float switch that will make that whole operation automatic.
I also have the pipe in that I will use to pump the sap from the tank in the car to the milk tank. I will be using some nice hose with camlock's to make it quick and simple.
I put in new pan gasket and have finished the firebrick grates that I switched to this year, man was that a lot of holes to drill!!
I managed to do a lot of inside stuff, it is just way to cold to do anything outside, with the windchill in is single digits.
Anyone in need of snow I have an unlimited supply that just keeps coming and coming. Should be plowing 6 driveways right now but they are gonna have to wait till morning. Been on call since thursday and have limited sleep. Want to get the paths in the sugarbushes cleaned out as well. Farmers almanac was wrong on this winter. I gave up tallying snowfall. have to be above 100 inches already. Will be pulling taps with a ladder at this rate.
how many taps you have on Vac so far Dennis?
It can stop snowing here anytime also. Took me almost 5 hours to shovel the drive way and then had to go down the the road and start over again a bit. Snowplow never went by yet so will have to go down tonight and shovel one more time. Nice to have a long drive way until this time of the year.
I went out in the woods yesterday to dig up some metal and it's starting to pile up out there now also. Hopefully the deer make me some good trails again. I chose most of the trees I tapped last year on where the deer made trails. Turned out in places they were walking over dead fall and piles of dead trees that made it sort of hard walking come spring.
I've been on vacation since before Christmas and it's bee pretty productive.
I stripped and replaced the siding on the sugarhouse w/ shiplap. I also put in 3 windows which make a huge difference inside for natural light.
I put my high mainline up to get everything back to the SH. All I have left to do is side tie to set grade.
I pulled off the used mainline I use last year on 3 mainlines and will be replacing it w/ new stuff.
Scoped out a new mainline extension which should get me about 30+ taps.
I found another dozen taps where the new mainline went in that I wasn't planning on. I need to talk to my neighbor and see what he thinks about thinning in this area. If he's on board, then I'll have over 20 cull trees I'll be able to add in as well.
By the time I'm said and done, I may be pushing 500 taps this season. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to boil all this on a 2.5x8. I talked to work and they won't guarantee time off during the season...depends on work load...we'll see how this season works out.
Been working on the lines all weekend and just finished up the last of them a few minutes ago. What a nice feeling. Been working on them since last summer. Think right now Im somewhere close to 5100 taps. Seems like Ive put in a lot more becouse Ive been stretching out all over the place to get them. Got 650 across the road on the big trees, got 450 up near there that will run into the shed ( nice mix of trees) and got roughly 400 or a few more on the booy bush (pretty much all hedgerow trees). Now starting tomarrow its OPERATION HOOK UP AND FINETOON. Time to get things hooked up, get things tight, and get things finetuned. Gonna seem like being on break after stringing all that line. Four more weeks to tappin in. Hopin for the REALLY BIG SAP!!! Theron:)
All I could muster up energy for was to walk out back to see if the bush was still there. Been blowing near gale force and we've had lake effect snow blowing horizontally for 2 days. Won't be much to shovel or plow - blowing so hard it's going clear off our lot. Evaporator is out in the snow.
Think I'll write to Farmer's Almanac folks to see if I can get a refund.
My favorite maple drink is a 1/2 glass of rum then fill the rest of the glass with hot syrup out of the evaporator,,,I call that the "Rockwall",,,pretty sure that is what my ansestors drank when building the walls thru the woods around here.........All girls hockey all weekend.......hope to get in some maple soon.....
No wonder you guys like boiling all night. White or dark rum in case I get so addicted to maple I start drinking.
I got a little bad news today, the stand of maples that I was going to use buckets on is up for sale. So I am pretty sure it will be gone by tapping time.
I called to find what they wanted for it, All I can say is ouch!!! It is 25 acres and they want $250,000!!!!!! that is $10,000/acre!!!
I now have to call another guy to find out if I can get permission for that property, it is alot nicer than this one that I lost. He is just alot harder to get ahold of.
How many taps are on that 25 acre lot?
Keith
I didn't get anything maple done this weekend, spent all my time adding a half bath in the house. Sad thing is it's still not done. When working in a 150+ year old farm house, NOTHING is quick, easy or goes exactly as it should. At least none of my solder joints leaked, I was proud of that.
Okay Parker I am a rum fan myself and never tried it with hot syrup. Something just sounds wrong about that. However glass of ice and a half and half mixture is pretty darn good. Ken I use dark rum Cpt. Morgan Tattoo is my favorite. Got myself and all the fishcamps on the list plowed today. Started well before light and finished around 1:30. Never got to the sugarhouse or the bushes. Be on call rest of week and hopefully I will be done Friday morning to get some sleep in time for the conference in Verona. It marks the begining of the season for me. Shortly after that it's go time.