Spring Harvest 2014

[Amber Gold]

Yeah...I'm not complaining. I've got about 500 gal in the tank from what I left in it from Sunday's pickup and what ran yesterday...wasn't expecting a run yesterday (~0.4gpt) otherwise I would've boiled it last night. Going to be cold in the SH tonight.

I got my magic box mostly working last night. The controllers turn on, but the syrup controller is reading in the 1200F range (haven't figured out how to calibrate it) and I haven't gotten the high temp. buzzer to work. Work on it this week.

[Amber Gold]

Collected 475 gal from Sunday night's and Monday's run. Squeezed it down and ran it through the evap. Kinda touch and go with everything being frozen, but no catastrophes. Got the stack thermometer portion of the magic box working, and it was nice having that to go by. Found I wasn't firing the evap. anywhere near hard enough, so that helped speed things along.

[Amber Gold]

Put the past two weeks to good use and was able to finish prepping for maple season and getting the sugarhouse picked up. Now I just need sap. Added a few taps over the weekend, and made some repairs I've been meaning to get to. Will be adding a few more taps this weekend too. Finally getting a warm-up on Friday and hopefully boiling again on Saturday.

Maple Weekend's coming quick...need to make some syrup.

[Amber Gold]

Sap ran OK over the weekend. I was able to bring home 475 gal last night, but will boil it tonight with today's run. Woods holding around 25" of vac. and was able to walk the entire woods and hammer back in loose spouts. Still have a mainline that needs some repair work and new taps added in. Will get to those this weekend.

I replaced a drop that was leaking like a sieve, and looked like a sieve...literally. 15" of the drop was full of little pin holes. Anybody seen this before? Not sure what attacked it, but easy fix.

More snowing coming on Wednesday/Thursday. Currently predicting 4-8"...awesome...I guess. Spent Sunday post-holing through the woods, so not really looking forward to more snow. Saturday, I could walk on it, Sunday not so much.

[Russell Lampron]

Sap ran OK over the weekend. I was able to bring home 475 gal last night, but will boil it tonight with today's run. Woods holding around 25" of vac. and was able to walk the entire woods and hammer back in loose spouts. Still have a mainline that needs some repair work and new taps added in. Will get to those this weekend.

I replaced a drop that was leaking like a sieve, and looked like a sieve...literally. 15" of the drop was full of little pin holes. Anybody seen this before? Not sure what attacked it, but easy fix.

More snowing coming on Wednesday/Thursday. Currently predicting 4-8"...awesome...I guess. Spent Sunday post-holing through the woods, so not really looking forward to more snow. Saturday, I could walk on it, Sunday not so much.

I have seen drops chewed like that before. With all of the pin holes I was thinking fisher cat or something like that. The ones in my woods were definitely chewed up but not chewed off.

Sounds like the sap ran better for you over the weekend than it did for me. Saturday was a disappointment. The sun didn't come out until almost noon and went back in almost as fast. I only managed to get about 200 gallons from Friday through today. I hoping that tomorrow will be better so that I can boil Wednesday.

[Amber Gold]

It was only the trees in the sun that were running. Even yesterday. I only collected 175 gal in the afternoon, but found another 150-200 in the tank this morning. Had some sap delivered and boiled everything I got from the weekend and made 17 gal of DA/B syrup. I wish the grade would come up and hopefully the trees wake up with these near 50F temps today.

Fisher cats...hadn't thought of those. Also had a new type of damage this year. Over the winter, lateral lines would be chewed in pieces and would need to replace sections of lateral lines, and it was only in a couple sections of woods. The only thing I can figure is it's deer. In one of the breaks, I found the line stretched right out before it broke. First time I've had this type of damage.

Russ, you need to put some heaters in those woods to get them warmed up and running. You generally run cold, don't you? I have a mix of sugars in the sun and a lot of reds in a swampy area that run colder...balances things out.

[GeneralStark]

It could also be porcupines. In my old woods there were lots of them and that was a pretty common thing to find. I think sometimes deer will run through lines and stretch them until they break. I have seen that as well.

[sjdoyon]

First few years we had a number of lines stretched out and broken. Wasn't too difficult to see what did it, moose tracks everywhere. They now walk in our roads and we've seen them flip the laterals with their heads and walk under. Have found moose hair caught on our wet line wire/pipe from a moose going under the wet/dry lines. Had over 30 laterals chewed up and on the ground this year. Saw a black bear early December last year in the sugarbush, he did one heck of a mess.

[abbott]

It could also be porcupines. In my old woods there were lots of them and that was a pretty common thing to find. I think sometimes deer will run through lines and stretch them until they break. I have seen that as well.

I get that quite a bit too and was also blaming porcupines. Particularly when a length of lateral gets knocked down, but also on stretches of tubing or drops that are still up.

[Russell Lampron]

It was only the trees in the sun that were running. Even yesterday. I only collected 175 gal in the afternoon, but found another 150-200 in the tank this morning. Had some sap delivered and boiled everything I got from the weekend and made 17 gal of DA/B syrup. I wish the grade would come up and hopefully the trees wake up with these near 50F temps today.

Fisher cats...hadn't thought of those. Also had a new type of damage this year. Over the winter, lateral lines would be chewed in pieces and would need to replace sections of lateral lines, and it was only in a couple sections of woods. The only thing I can figure is it's deer. In one of the breaks, I found the line stretched right out before it broke. First time I've had this type of damage.

Russ, you need to put some heaters in those woods to get them warmed up and running. You generally run cold, don't you? I have a mix of sugars in the sun and a lot of reds in a swampy area that run colder...balances things out.

I had a moose run through my woods that stretched and broke a few laterals. One year when the snow was really deep I think the deer chewed on some laterals. They were chewed right off in the center and too high off of the snow for anything else to do it.

Most of my trees face west or north. Some are down low in a swamp. There's a lot of cold down there and that helps when it gets warm out but not very helpful when it has been cold like this season. Yesterday I pumped 375 out of my tank which included a 150 gallon ice block that finally melted. With yesterday's temps I was expecting more.