Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[drewlamb]

Yeah, being on the trader midday is not a good sign for maple activity! We stayed busy the last couple days doing a complete sweep of our 4 bushes to look for downed lines after that huge windstorm a few days back. Nothing on mainlines thankfully but a dozen or so laterals to fix. Not sure Tuesday will do much for us here except loosen things up but Wed/Wed night looks like a gusher.

[TapTapTap]

Hey Drew Lamb, you could go hang out and wait for melting temperatures at the Whammy Bar! My wife and I went there a few years back after stopping to buy some buckets from you. What a cool little joint. And its located at "Maple Corner". Have a great season!
Ken

[drewlamb]

Hey Drew Lamb, you could go hang out and wait for melting temperatures at the Whammy Bar! My wife and I went there a few years back after stopping to buy some buckets from you. What a cool little joint. And its located at "Maple Corner". Have a great season!
Ken

Ha! That's fantastic. Yeah, the Whammy's been closed throughout the pandemic. Just so small. Everyone is on everyone else's lap just to fit a dozen people in there. But no doubt an awesome community spot!

You guys certainly have stepped it up from bucket days, wow. Guess most of us start that way and it often goes one direction after that! We got up to about 700 buckets before switching over. I think that was 2012. Hmm, that means my oldest laterals are 10 years old. Wonder if I need to think about switching that stuff out. Not sure I know what happens to tubing when it reaches the end of it's lifespan. Is it really not useable? Perhaps at some point it just starts to fall apart or not hold fittings well?

Good luck with your season Ken!

[JoeJ]

I spent 9 1/2 hours on Thursday and Friday fixing fisher chews on 304 taps on a 1,500' long 1" mainline. I did 81 repairs from replacing multiple chewed drops to 15' long sections of completely chewed 5/16 line. The only way to find the "hidden chews" (one bite on a drop) was to run my hand over every inch of the 5/16 tubing and every drop. That made for two rather unpleasant days. Time to set the traps out again. Plus one deer chew, but that one was easy to spot.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

The power went out during the storm, turning off my heaters, making all my pvc shatter. What a mess. So tomorrow I will be working in there again...

[drewlamb]

The power went out during the storm, turning off my heaters, making all my pvc shatter. What a mess. So tomorrow I will be working in there again...

****. Feel for you treehugger. We've probably all been there in one way or another. We have no heat in our sugarhouse so there's always a long list of ice mitigation to do at the end of a boil.

Is that the same Joe that sold me all those 15 gal kegs a few years back? Still using them, but like you have mostly switched to 40s. Curious, how do you know the damage is fisher and not porcupine or squirrel or whatever? Most of our line chew is squirrel, but you can definitely tell when it's a porcupine instead. Just shredded. I don't think there's much to be done with a shotgun to help knock back the squirrel population, perhaps I'm wrong there, but I've taken out some porcupine and have noticed a huge difference. They are pretty territorial and can occupy large parts of a stand, so taking one out can save a lot of damage and a lot of tree girdling. I never feel good about it but feel the need to protect the resource.

[JoeJ]

Drew,
Yes, the same Joe. The fishers bite and chew the lines. You can see the two fang punctures about an inch or so apart top and bottom of the tubing.They do not nick or cut them off like squirrels will sometime do.
When I do manage to trap one of the fishers, the damage goes away for a while.

Joe

[Goatogether]

How would you describe each different chewer’s damage? I’m new and knock on wood haven’t seen any yet. But I sure would like to know what to look for, if anyone would be so kind as to describe each critters signature?

[TapTapTap]

The power went out during the storm, turning off my heaters, making all my pvc shatter. What a mess. So tomorrow I will be working in there again...

I've set up a temperature monitoring device in my sugarhouse kitchen. It connects to the internet and notifies me of freezing or extreme hot temperature. I also have an internet camera aimed at the RO and it's clear enough to read the system temperature so I can monitor the actual condition. I won't have either system if the power fails but I'll get several notifications when that happens. I've got a stand-by generator and auto switch for the house. But I need to manually switch to the sugarhouse. If all that fails, I can grab the Buddy heater.
Ken

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[JoeJ]

From my experience, squirrels will nick, make a small cut or chew a whole or chew off a 5/16 line or chews large holes in main line or chew on saddles. Deer will raggedly chew 5/16 line with their molars or just cut the line off. I have never had any deer damage on a main line. I have had coyotes chew the 5/16 into small pieces 1/2" to 1" long, chew up 5' to 8' of 5/16 in one place and even chew on saddles. Fishers will bite 5/16 and leave fang marks that pierce the 5/16 or just bite up an entire 40" drop line. You can tel it is a fisher by the small cat like tooth pierce marks. I have never had any main line fisher damage. Bears will leave large tooth punctures that are several inches apart. With my first attack by a woodpecker, I though a kid had vandalized my main line. The hole were so perfectly round, equal in size and spaced the same distance apart, that I thought that the holes had been drilled in the line. I just had my first woodpecker attack in 5 years this season, with four holes in a 12" space. Just great for vacuum. The only thing good about woodpeckers is that they seem to always make a big enough hole that you can hear the air 20' away.
This may not be a complete list or exactly describe each problem, but this is what I have found.

Joe