January Journal 2013

[Pumpkin Village Maple]

Here in Fairfield Vt we had a maple interview with 3 top notch reporters from the Sixth Grade class. Grilled me with alot of tough question even when I had on my red plaid flannel shirt. Got out of that situation by offering maple candy and maple syrup samples. It was good to see them taking there school work so serious. Even had to do a blooper part. That wasn't to hard on my part. We're ready to here. 200 buckets waiting on us. Need a new cordless drill thou.
Have a great season.


Al Hayford
Algiers Evaporator
200 Buckets

[Yellzee]

Took advantage of the summer weather this weekend to get alot done. +14 Celcius here... or somewhere close to 60 F.

GAthering tank now in place with boards under to try and balance it in the mud... yep need gravel there for next year or better yet a concrete pad.

Squirrel/Deer/turkey destroyed lines all repaired and back up. put in alot of splices as I didn't have any new line around to use. Man is it alot of work to repair chewed lines,,, way more than putting up totally new I think. any new lateral lines I run I think I'm going to put several anchors around trees and not just the anchoring clip at the end of the lateral. that way if it gets chewed a a couple places at least parts of the line are still up out of the snow and tensioned along the way rather than the entire line being on the ground.

One mistake I found I had made... I had cut the lateral lines off the mainline right at the barb fitting on the saddle to flush the laterals out and make sure everything was running/not plugged. However I left them like this all summer and now all the barbs are full of mudwasp nests (or some similar bug). I had to pull all the sadddles out to clean them out. Next year I'll stick on a cap or a small piece or tubing to prevent this.

Dragged some fallen trees out of the woods for next years firewood.. but it was actually too warm to do this... was sweating like crazy... Finish this up when the temps fall again this week.

[sjdoyon]

Almost done tapping. Turned on the vacuum pump Saturday afternoon and pulled in about 4,000 gallons of sap. Ran through the RO today while tapping, plan to boil tomorrow to sweeten pans and make a few gallons. Cold weather moving in so it was a nice break to see it run.

[red maples]

Wow did it huh!!!!

Finally took down the x-mas tree (it was my job to take off the light and it outside) Got the outside x-mas lights down today, Did mid season chimney cleaning, cleaned out chicken coupe, was able to turn over some of the compost pile, worked on evap a little,

Tomorrow hopefully finish evap.... couple hours of chainsaw work. and the then into the woods to finish side ties on 400 ft pice of mainline. then hopefully install mainline tube and get it all tied up. I hope.

Looking forward to the NH annual this weekend!!! supposed to have a comedian for the afternoon sounds like fun!!!

[adk1]

wow, I got my tree down New Years

[SSFLLC]

Loggers finished thinning the sugar bush. Mains and branch lines back up and regraded. Looking to tap in on Valentines Day again. Hoping this will help with the sap haul.

[red maples]

Gotta finish up maple books for taxes today!!!!! Don't meet with the Accountant until feb 12th but need to get it done!!!

Man you need to check in on the trader daily or you really rack up the new posts.....fffeewww. about 5 pages of new stuff busy times for the maple community!!!.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Just made a run to Deer River and purchased a 1500 gallon bulk tank for $1500.

[red maples]

Done cooking the books!!! Got everything in there, mileage done, inventory done.....brain cooked as well. at least its all done!!!

[waysidemaple]

image.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgBeen working in the pumps house and R.O. Room non stop the last two weeks. Almost have it all ready. Hooking up the pump house electric tomorrow and finishing the plumbing on the R.O. Get the electric hooked up to the R.O. early next week and set some tanks and I think I'll be ready. If time permits I know a section I can add 100 taps to my 3800 tap system pretty easily. Won't be long till go time here.

Scott