2013 Journey's End Maple Farm Saga

[gearpump]

I made the mistake of predicting to all my family members in December that Febuary will be a long and snowy month....now I am done with the snow! We had a pretty good rhythm at the begining of Febuary getting the lines tapped and then I got the flu! Just as I was getting over the flu, I got a severe ear infection that punctured my right ear drum. I'm finally feeling better, but I can't hear worth beans. We have managed to get 840 taps out on tubing and are now just waiting for the right time to deploy the bucket crew and get all "tapped out". Our little vaccum system of 340 taps is slowly giving us enough sap to take care of the boiling fix. The releaser has been driving my wife and me crazy with weird readings. The vacuum gets up to 22"-24" stays there for a while, drops to 18" or so, dumps, then climbs right up 24" and usually a gush of sap is let in from a couple of lines and then the process starts all over again. If the sap is not running good the HG level will stay up to 23" for a long while. Me thinks the trees are still frozen up and things will even out when it gets warmer. We'll see. All the sap in our roadside containers is frozen solid so we can't collect it. We also can't collect it because my silly wife accidentally left the prime plug for the pump on the tailgate and it got lost. A new one should arrive on Friday by UPS. The RO pump that I "fixed" in the off season sounds much better, but leaks like a sieve. Fortunately it's only sap, not concentrate, and I am collecting as much as possible. And the beat goes on... and the beat goes on...

[Russell Lampron]

Hey Marty how's it going over there now that April is almost here. We have had one of the best seasons on record so far and relatively few problems. The buckets haven't yielded very much but the vacuum has been pretty consistent. The sap runs haven't been big but they have been plentiful.

Did your releaser problem fix itself or did you find some leaks?

[gearpump]

This season is definitly one for the books or something! The releaser problem was the regulator I tryed to modify for better air flow. I finally gave up and reinstalled the old one and it's been running like a champ ever since. My wife got a big out of that! Another fun problem we had on the Saturday of maple weekend. I was running around getting the pancake breakfast crew set up and at the same time I started the RO and switched the valve to run concentrate to the head tank. Well about 10 minutes later I walked into the RO room to a shower of 8% sap spraying all over the place! The line to the head tank was froze and I did not catch it! What a mess, the walls,the ceiling and inside the RO will need some hot water soaking after the season! So far the tally is around 312 gallons produced. It looks like this is the year for the check valves. We replaced all our gavity tap drops this year and I think this has also helped out. All we need now is more snow!!!

[Russell Lampron]

It's been a season for the books here too! It is the second best out of the last 5 as far as syrup production is concerned. The off season improvements worked and things haven't broken down as much as in the past. I'm at 176.5 gallons of syrup produced and just pumped up 525 gallons of sap to RO and boil tomorrow. Wish I had more sugar maples to get my syrup per tap ratio up but I tap what I've got and those are reds. I had a frozen line to my permeate tank on the Saturday of maple weekend. A simple fix and no sap lost. I had one releaser malfunction early in the season and my moisture trap did what it was supposed to so no sap got into the vacuum line to the pump. Gotta love it when things work out like that. I wasn't so lucky last year and sap was sucked 1500' up the vacuum line and into the pump. It was almost impossible to get all of the sap out of the line and I wouldn't have any vacuum to the woods when it froze. There are many that wouldn't agree with you because they have seen enough snow for one year but yes it would help extend the season. Do you know who is tapping the trees at Levi Ladds place at the corner of Ridge Rd? I don't think he's getting much sap with all of the sags in the tubing and as loose as it is going into the barrel.

[gearpump]

Our season is not going out without a fight. Since Wednesday we have made over 45 gallons of syrup! The bucket taps have finally woke up and produced some nice clear sap. The vacuum taps have been avg. about a gallon of sap every day. The sugar level is down to 1.25 to 1.5. Its still grade B and no commercial made yet. We are at 352 gallons right now and we might get a couple more runs today and tommorow. Russ those lines belong to the guy on the corner across the road. I do think he is better sticking to buckets!

[gearpump]

April 7, 2013, 8:30PM: We called it. The vacuum pump has been shut off for the season. Our bucket taps are still going, and we boiled 700 gallons tonight, 350 of it from the vacuum taps. The syrup looked like a dark/medium with a mild B flavor. Tommorow we will see if there is any more to collect and call it the end for everything. It looks like we are at 360 gals or so right now and might finish out the season around 375 gals.