Spring Harvest 2017

[Dill]

I talked to Josh midday yesterday. He's tapping steady and was seeing sap flow around noon. I suspect he's already on snowshoes this morning.

[Russell Lampron]

I was able to tap here without snowshoes. There were a couple of times that I went in over my knees but overall it wasn't bad without snowshoes.

[Dill]

You could practically watch the snow melt here. I'm seeing stuff that didn't exist above the snowline a couple hours ago, but I still need shoes. The dog just isn't sinking out of sight now.

[red maples]

yeah need snow shoes here too. at least since its heavier and wet now you don;t sink in as much.

[Amber Gold]

Busy weekend, so just getting back on trader. No snowshoes for me. Generally knees or below, so I'd just as soon not deal with the big feet.

It's been a frustrating long weekend for sure. Saturday went well and got another big mainline tapped in, which brought my total to around 700. The plan for Sunday was to get the vac. pump and releaser going in the morning and finishing tapping in the afternoon. I filled the stock tank with water and found it was full of leaks. Ran to a friend's and borrowed a tank. Got that set up. Got the pump going and found the float switch wasn't working on the releaser. Got that working and found it wasn't tripping properly and called it a day. Monday, I found the two floats were full of water, so I ran home drilled them out, and dropped the weight down, but not enough. I have a complete float switch and float setup on overnight from Lapierre for delivery today. I'll replace the entire float assembly tonight.

Last night, I reduced the weight of the floats some more, and it was working this morning, but we'll see if it continues to do so...pretty sure I haven't found all of the leaks.

Downside is I lost Sunday through Tuesday's sap runs. Hopefully all's good for tomorrow, and I can try to find time to tap the remaining 150+ before the weekend. There's about 725-750 taps in now, and I was pulling 22"+ of vac by the end of yesterday. The season can't get much worse from here, can it?

[Maplewalnut]

Josh- my year so far has been challenging also with RO and releaser leaks and failures. Looking for a weather window to rip my one RO post apart to run to VT for rebuild of a ceramic gasket. Keep plugging away, you'll get it figured out.

Mike

[Amber Gold]

Thanks Mike. This is definitely the roughest start to a season I've ever had. What burns me is the 3 lost days of sap production. A rush trip to VT for that...bummer. You keep plugging away too...can't get any worse, right.

I put the RO together last night and flushing the membrane tonight, so hopefully that goes well.

Forgot animal chews. The squirrels have been on a feeding frenzy since last season. Worst season for animal damage too.

[red maples]

Wow that is a bad start... sorry man!!!

lots of animal damage all over this year I am hoping next year is better since I got rid of so many squirrels this fall. I am just a little behind. so I don;t feel too bad but off to the woods now.

[Amber Gold]

Yesterday I called Lapierre to troubleshoot the float issue. Got right to their releaser dept. and talked through the issues. He was very helpful. When I realized I needed a new float setup, I called them back at 3:35 and they overnighted what I needed and it was here before noon today. Lapierre has always been helpful when I've needed them.

Got home from work tonight, swapped out the float switch and floats. I stayed there long enough to watch it run through two full cycles with no issues. Back in business!!!

[Russell Lampron]

Sorry to hear about all of the problems Josh. Once you get the bugs worked out and the leaks under control it should be smooth sailing.

As for me I wish I could have been tapped in before last weekend but got tapped in by Sunday afternoon. It took me less time than ever to get my vacuum leaks fixed and vacuum to 26" even though there was a lot of squirrel damage. My first boil went well too. I got the evaporator sweetened and made 3 gallons of golden syrup last night.