Red Roof Maples 2018

[Russell Lampron]

I sold my old arch today. There was a lot of interest in it and I wish that I had more of them to sell. It was still below zero here this morning when I tried to start my tractor. I had to put two battery chargers on it before it would turn over fast enough to start. While I was plowing with it it was losing power because the fuel was jelling. I managed to keep it running though and was able to do my plowing and load my old arch into the guys truck. The guy that bought my arch has one just like it but it has a broken draft door and holes in the tin. He's thinking of putting the front from his arch onto mine and then selling his.

[BAP]

That’s good news Russ. I don’t think we will be boiling sap for a while with this weather.

[Russell Lampron]

I finished bricking my new arch today and got the pans onto it. It looks real pretty but I've got to clean it up before I can get some pictures. I'll be wiring the blower next weekend and if I have enough time I'll do a test boil. I have to work next Saturday so I won't be able to work on it again until Sunday.

[red maples]

Hi russ, congrats again on the pretty new rig. Hurry up man, should be getting ready to tap soon!!! Hopefully you can get a little of that test boil on video ad post to Facebook so we can all be jelous.

[Russell Lampron]

Hi russ, congrats again on the pretty new rig. Hurry up man, should be getting ready to tap soon!!! Hopefully you can get a little of that test boil on video ad post to Facebook so we can all be jelous.

Between work and the cold and snow it's been hard to be able to work on it. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get the blower wired up so I can do a test boil. I still have to get into the woods and get things ready to tap too. On the plus side I was able to fill my woodshed this year so I won't be scrambling mid season to find wood like last year.

[NH Maplemaker]

Russ, you must of made a lot of money on that syrup! LOL Nice looking arch ! Hope it works well for you.

[Russell Lampron]

Hey Jim, it's good to hear from you. I didn't make a lot of money but I made enough. I didn't sell as much at the Deerfield Fair as I had hoped but other than that sales were good. I can't wait to see how that new arch makes the evaporator boil.

[red maples]

Between work and the cold and snow it's been hard to be able to work on it. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get the blower wired up so I can do a test boil. I still have to get into the woods and get things ready to tap too. On the plus side I was able to fill my woodshed this year so I won't be scrambling mid season to find wood like last year.

yeah thats some bad luck, but at least you got some wood. It wouldn't be maple season without last minute scrambling to get stuff done!!!

[Russell Lampron]

Got the conduit, switches and wiring all figured out and laid out for the blower on the new arch last Sunday. While I was at it I also wired in a switch for the Bubblemaster. I only have to connect the wires to the blower and breaker box and that project will be finished.

Instead of finishing the wiring I hit the woods today. I had a good day walking lines and making repairs. I had to cut some downed trees and limbs but managed to get 3 mainlines ready to tap. I only have 1 hard one to do which I will do tomorrow. If the long range forecast looks good I will tap next weekend. Screw the long range forecast! I'm going to tap next weekend anyways.

I ordered a new pre filter canister for my RO and it will be here next week. I hope that nothing else got damaged when it froze up.

[Russell Lampron]

My son in law was able to come over and help today. After steak and eggs for breakfast at Veanos II in Concord we hit the woods and had that ready to tap before lunch. That gave us enough time to finish wiring the evaporator and do a test boil. I can't wait to see what the evaporator will do with sap in it. The flue pan boils better than it ever has with this new arch. We've got the blower at about 1/2 speed and it seems to be boiling good there. When we ran it full speed the stack was turning blue up near the top so we knew that we had to back it down a bit. We also noticed that there was only heat striations coming out of the stack and no black smoke and sparks like we used to have. The extra air that is blowing in from the front is doing it's job and getting all of those un-burned gasses burnt.

We also tried plumbing up the blower from my old arch to see if it would create enough pressure to run the Bubblemaster. Unfortunately it didn't so it's back to using and listening to the shop vac as the air supply. The evaporator was really putting some steam in the air and it got even more intense when ran the Bubblemaster too.

I'm pretty much ready for the season now. The big question that still remains is the health of the RO. I have a new membrane if I need it but don't know where the money's going to come from if I need to replace some pumps too.