Wind, big wind!
We had heavy winds yesterday. I finished boiling about 4:00 pm, cleaned up and left. Then about 7:00 I went back to the sugarhouse to get something and discovered that an ash tree had blown over, it was about 15" DBH and it hit the corner of the sugarhouse. So far I only saw that it broke one corner of the overhang and along the way it took out one mainline. In fact it was the anchor tree for that mainline. I may just park the excavator there for an anchor until after the season. Then I'll likely need to set a heavy duty post or move that end of the mainline 8-10' in one direction or the other and adjust the laterals that enter it. From the last side tie to that end I have 7-8 laterals that enter that line but that will be after the season and after my surgery recovery time.
As for the sugarhouse, I only saw 2-3 purlin boards broken on that overhang, but there was a limb from that tree that hit the overhang about half way down towards the far end of the sugarhouse, I know it wrinkled the steel roofing, not sure if any boards were broken.
Clean up today at any rate. We will have no sap today, high temp will be 32, which gives me 1 day to get that tree cleaned up and then reset that mainline to run sap tomorrow when the temps will be high enough for sap to run.
I've set a last date for boiling new sap for 4/13 if it goes that long, then I'll need to finish off everything, bottle or pack all of the syrup in barrels, clean everything, pull the taps and clean the lines all before my surgery on 4/18. After that I'll have 2 weeks no work orders, followed by 4 weeks max. lifting 10#. That woun't leave much for maple that I'll be able to do.
Dave Klish, I recently ordered a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.