Red Roof Maples 2018

[Russell Lampron]

Thank you for the well wishes guys. I know that there are others that are much worse off than I am.

Good luck with your season's guys. It looks like it should be a good one.

[red maples]

Oh man that sucks russ!!! yes cancer sucks. hang in there good luck bud!!!

[eustis22]

thoughts are with you., Russell. You can beat this.

[TRAILGUY]

had my removed 13 years ago all is good. wish you all the luck.

[Russell Lampron]

Thanks guys!

I've got a busy weekend planned. I'm going to finish tapping Saturday and change the oil in my trusty old SP 22. I also have to replace the starter in my tractor. I ordered it Monday and it was shipped Tuesday so hopefully it will be here tomorrow. I'm not sure where I will fit it into the schedule but I have to bring more wood up to the outdoor wood boiler before I run out. Maybe I'll do a load first thing Saturday Morning and another load Sunday morning before the sap starts running.

[Russell Lampron]

had my removed 13 years ago all is good. wish you all the luck.

Thirteen years ago and no problems, that's encouraging. My urologist and oncologist both said that I had a 67% chance of a recurrence in 10 years. I hope that they are wrong and that once I get through this rough patch I will be good for the rest of my life. I can tell you though that I don't like the odds.

[Russell Lampron]

We had another good day here at Red Roof Maples. We finished tapping this morning and even added a couple of new trees to the system. While we were tapping we found a lateral's worth of trees that we will be tubing up tomorrow morning and another tree near a lateral that we will plumbing in too. If the tap count in Leader's bags is correct I have 715 taps in now and will be adding 7 more tomorrow. I've got to find 3 more trees to make it an even 725.

The temp never got above 32* here but the sun warmed the trees and thawed the lines enough for me to turn on the vacuum pump and pull in about 40 gallons of gunk and old sap. After letting the vacuum pump run for a couple of hours I changed the oil in it and it is ready for the BIGSAP next week.

I was hoping to change the starter in my tractor today but it won't be here until Monday. Unless Richard can come up and change it during the day it looks like I'll be changing it in the dark after work. I've been able to get the tractor started by tapping on the starter and jumping it with a battery charger but can't be fooling around like that when there's sap to be collected.

With the snow that we are supposed to get tonight and the weather we are supposed to get tomorrow, a lot of sun, west wind about 5mph and 42* for a high the sap should be hammering. When we are done adding taps we will go on leak patrol and hopefully get the system tight for the upcoming week.

[Scm]

..........

[Russell Lampron]

Hi Russ.
Sorry to hear about your health issues. I lost my dad to cancer a number of years ago. Since then I’ve done a lot of reading. I wish I knew then, what I know now. I am now a firm believer in we are what we eat, and since then, have made numerous changes in my life to hopefully help prevent the same outcome. Here is an article that may help you. 3 simple foods that could really help.

https://news.utexas.edu/2017/06/06/s...eat-for-dinner

Take care and I hope you have a great recovery/season.

I think we all wish that we knew then, what we know now. I would surely have done a lot of things differently. I just read the article in your link and it would have been nice to know something like that 15 years ago when my cancer was probably first starting. You can have prostate cancer for years or even decades and not even know it.

You take care too and I hope that you have a great season.

[Russell Lampron]

Last night's 2" to 4" of snow turned out to be more like 8" of snow. It didn't warm up as fast as it should have with a cold north wind. I went out this morning and added the 7 new taps that I had planned on and scouted out and added another 6 taps. That puts me at 728 taps as long as I don't find any hollow trees.

Finally around 1 pm it was running good enough to do some leak checking. When I started out I had 21" of vacuum and when I finished I had 25". Mostly squirrel chews and a handful of micro leaks at tee fittings. I still have some leaks to find and fix but ran out of daylight.

I checked the tank at 6:30 and there was nothing coming into the releaser so I turned off the vacuum. I have 100 gallons in the tank and hope to get enough tomorrow and Tuesday to sweeten the pans. It looks like it's not going to freeze again until possibly Wednesday night and if not then Thursday night.