Hop Kiln Road 2014

Naw, might have but don't remember. But none of the stuff is unnecessary equipment. Rather RO's, vacuums, filter presses all have an economy of scale. Break point for a filter press is probably a hundred to two hundred gallons of syrup a season. But the wonderful part of maple is anybody can make good syrup in their driveway with minimal equipment and expense. And there are all sorts of posts of sugar makers problem solving terrific solutions, developing impressive skill sets and making good syrup.

So M picks out this cute house and we buy it without carefully checking out the neighborhood. Geez it ends up being in an area locally known as Snob Hill. Like, never trust those real estate people. And I guess I understand, the neighbors have things like "infinity" type pools and one 747 guy runs over the edge year round. Now I've seen these pools through the bird glasses and by climbing trees, but after 15 years I've yet to be able to stick a toe in one. M comes back all the time from long jogs with wet hair, she says it's just from running up the hill, but I have my doubts. I guess it's all about hanging out on your floatie until you're convinced the world is flat and the very next breeze will send you off the edge and it is quite the panic...right, Dr. Strangelove? (He's a couple doors over, right after the Ambassador, and I don't think he reads the Trader.) Well after further investigating, I discovered infinity type pools cost more than our house so I decided to build an infinity type patio and borrowed an excavator from a dirt trader to harvest all the spare rocks scattered about my lawn. Messy but hey, just trying to fit in and I'm going to invite the neighbors over to libate on my infinity patio and enjoy the end of the world absolutely without any reciprocal expectations.

looks like you got an early start on your garden too

Little doubt here that the maple season will collide with the asparagus season. Walked the lines yesterday on top of the snow pack. Only the south sides were dripping. Two inches of new snow this morning. First run starts today. No excuses, everyone oughta be ready by now!

Pumped .5 gpt but only warmer lines had good streams and south side buckets. Nice 2.5% sugar. Can't believe the snowpack!

Collected about .4gpt last night. Once again, only the warmer three orchards produced anything. Counting the ice, 3 gpt so far with an annual average od 13.2 gpt. No mud here yet, instead have to sand the considerable ice. Should get another .5gpt today.

Got .75 gpt of 3% from the buckets, .4 gpt of 2.4% from the lines pumping at 7PM. Pretty good streams from the warm orchards but the flow didn't start until 2PM and ran right through the high winds. No tree wells in the woods yet. Had to use an ice chisel to pump two of the tanks. The sap gets trapped between three layers of ice. Getting better with the filter press now that I understand the concept of a bypass valve.

Got .6 gpt today, about 400 gal, more than expected but light flows. Gathered a little too late and the temps slid too fast and couldn't get it all into the sugarhouse before the lines froze. Just more ice into the inventory.

Took 2 days for the overhead feed line to unfreeze and 2 hours to thaw out the sugarhouse and finish Sunday's sap. Floor drain frozen on March 25th? Over 40 gals of nice syrup but the weather is still too cold to start the trees. No tree wells. Dense snowpack. Big ice in the streams. Any rain will probably run off on top.

Tough weather. Got .25 gpt yesterday and .40 gpt today of 2.8%. Ice in all the tanks. Heavy snowpack.