Spring Harvest 2015

[Amber Gold]

I took all day Sat. and Sun. to get the last 400 taps in. Got 'er done though.

Yesterday morning got the vac. going and the new groundwater well seems to be working pretty good. Having issues with the LR pump cavitating. It'll cavitate for a few seconds, run fine for a sec., and then cavitate again. It'll do this 4-5 times and then run fine for a while, and then go through the cycles again. Not sure what's going on.

Spent yesterday afternoon checking for vac. leaks. Found unless the mainline was dug out of the snow, it was froze, so now all the mainlines dug out of the snow...what fun. I was able to make a first pass through the entire woods fixing taps I missed and squirrel chews. Got the woods up to 23" by the end of the day. Not bad and good enough for now. A late start by the time everything was online so no big sap runs. Today things will be plugged in all day, so hopefully we get a decent run.

Miss three days on trader and there's 9 pages of threads to go through.

[red maples]

hey just a quick note I am 5 for 5 on live strong hives!!! checked them all and started feeding yesterday. very excited its the first time all my hives wintered over!!!

[Russell Lampron]

Josh is there an air leak on the water intake side of your LR pump? That could cause the cavitating. Good to hear that you've got all of your taps in.

[Amber Gold]

Brad, I no longer like you...JK. Good for you on the hives.

Russ, just talked to Tuthill (owners of Atlantic Fluidics). They said to try to get the water colder because they think the water's boiling in the pump head. I checked the GW well this morning and it's at 70F...too warm. Time to plumb that line back in from the stream. It'll take some work because I need to build a short dam to get a little bit of a reservoir. They said a couple days of it cavitating won't hurt the pump.

Sap ran all day yesterday and most of last night. Brought home 500 gal this morning to make room in the tank. First boil tonight. Hope everything goes smooth.

[Dill]

Mercenary taps are coming along. I finished tapping yesterday, but it looks like Old Man Frost Heave claimed another releaser rod. Guess I'll have to start hauling the releaser back and forth in the VW.
The other Dills are tapping as well. My father said the sap was shooting out of his roadside monsters yesterday and my brother is floundering in road side ditches this morning.

[red maples]

Well I guess youre luck is in sap and my luck in the hives... ( well this year anyway)

[Amber Gold]

Yesterday's total was 1010 gallons. Left about 100 gal in the tank. Think sugar's around 2.1%. Hauled it home, took it to 15% and boiled away. Second time on the first boil of the season where I mistake which red line to read...syrup a little heavy last night... Made 5'ish gallons last night. Everything pretty much ran smooth, but like every first boil it's a cluster f getting things from what I thought was near ready to boil, to actually being ready...two different things. Kinda neat when you can go from a dead stop to making syrup in about an hour.

Don't think we'll get much sap today, nothing tomorrow, but maybe something on Sat. w/ the snow?? That's fine. Gives me some time to get a few more projects done.

Aside from the past and future repair bills, the new sap hauler's working out great. Flatbed dump's sure are nice. So much more room than a pickup bed, and you can dump it to get the tank dry. After I got done plowing, the last time, I found a crack in the frame about 18" back from the front bumper. Hoping it lasts until the end of maple season. Only good repair option is to cut the front section of frame out and weld in a new one from another truck. Don't have time for that now. Got sap to haul!

[red maples]

depending on how the crack goes and the extent of it. actually what you can do is grind the crack and dig it out just a bit then fill it in and grind it flat. then take a piece of steel plate and weld it over the crack on both sides of the frame. this will reinforce the whole area. because if thats a week park of the frame (which sounds like it is) chances are you are going to have a hard time finding a frame that isn't cracked. unless it was picked up and they fixed it in a later model and the frame is the same.

Nice sugar content. Mine was lower only approx. 1.65 I can usually off set the lower vac sap with the buckets but 25 gallons of it and it was only 2.5 (usually closer to 3.5) ain't gonna do much to 400 gallons. buckets aren't running good here yet well either are my cold woods. still getting antsy about maple weekend though need some stuff to get started on maple confections!!!

[n8hutch]

If your Sap hauler is A ford superduty that crack is pretty typical, I have seen several of them crack about half way between the front axle & front bumper. I don't know if Ford ever fixed the problem or not, I check my 2010 f-350 every time I wash it to see if its cracked, doesn't seem to really effect the truck all that much but I imagine left alone long enough could create some problems.

[Russell Lampron]

It only took alittle over an hour for me to go from lighting the evaporator to first draw off too. Ten minutes later I was out of sap. I had 750 gallons to start with, sweetened to 14% and boiled for 1 hour and 45 minutes.