Red Roof Maples 2011

[Russell Lampron]

Wow, step away from the computer for a day and half and come back to 6 pages and 145 threads with unread posts.

I must have been crazy but drove to Matt's yesterday in the snow storm to help him get tapped in. The snow in the woods is deep. After forgetting the most important tool, the swing press. A trip to his house and back and we were ready to hit the woods. That is after getting the snowmobile to run and getting it stuck a couple of times. We managed to get a little over 300 taps in before it got dark. We saved an easy section for last and the last 100 taps went in pretty fast compared to the first 200 plus.

It looks like it finally going to warm up a bit but it is going to be stormy not nice and sunny like it needs to be to get things thawed out and flowing. The snow is still over half way up the sides of my 550 gallon poly tank. Gonna need 400 gallons in it to be able to see the sap level without digging down.

[Russell Lampron]

Not much happening here at Red Roof Maples. It looks like the flood gates could be opening up this weekend and the temps look good for next week. I hope that the forecast is somewhat correct.

I have been running the vacuum pump when the temps have allowed for a little sap flow and have managed to get over 100 gallons in the last week and a half. Most of that is a block of ice that is going to get more solid tonight.

The pre season tune up is done, the releaser repaired and a lot of vacuum leaks fixed. There aren't very many now. I am maintaining 22" of vacuum and am ready for the BIGSAP.

[SSFLLC]

Russ you running your pump today. Suns out lines are thawing out. Big sap this weekend.

[Russell Lampron]

Kieth the pump wasn't on when I just got home from work. I haven't had a chance to check with Richard to see if he turned it on today. We ran it yesterday and it looks like when it gets turned on tomorrow it will stay on until it freezes again which might be Monday. I can only hope.

[SSFLLC]

Thats what were looking at also. I was in the woods all day. No sap here. Had to relevel the sugar shack off by 4 inches. Michelle will be turning on the pump tomorrow as soon as it hits 32. Then on till freeze up.

[Russell Lampron]

The report was that it never got thawed enough yesterday to turn the pump on. It only got to 31 here yesterday.

[Russell Lampron]

Because of the clouds and slow warm up the sap didn't start to flow until about 2 this afternoon. Pulled in about 100 gallons as of 7:00 and still coming in pretty good. Got the buckets tapped today too. I've got 96 of them out this year. Would have had 100 if I hadn't run a new lateral behind my house this morning. Four less buckets to empty and 4 more taps on vacuum.

[Russell Lampron]

The season is off to a slow start. I did boil and make some syrup Sunday night and have 275 more gallons of sap waiting for todays thaw before it gets pumped up to the sugar house. The way that the deep freeze blew in yesterday afternoon had me worried that the sap might freeze in the pipe before it got to the sugar house 1500' away.

[red maples]

yes the cold came fast and furious!!! went to hear a hiss coming from the releaser. upon further review...the 90* elbow from the manifold to the main canister froze up solid!!! caught it just in time although the pressure in the line was dropping so no real threat of sap backup. but close!!!

[Russell Lampron]

I had the same thing happen. The elbow was frozen solid. Never had that happen before.

Had a little over 400 gallons of sap in the tank in the woods from the last 2 days runs last night. Went down to pump it up and noticed that the level in the tank wasn't going down when about as much sap as it takes to get to the sugar house was pumped out. rode up to the suger house to investigate and found that a trickle of sap had come out then the line froze up solid. I wlll get that and todays run pumped up before it gets below freezing today.