Southeast Missouri 2010 - It's Time!!

[Goggleeye]

Put in #84 today, hopefully 120 by Thursday!

[The Birdman]

skinny looks like you lost out. Goggleeye take's the led, you still have time to get more taps in.

[Goggleeye]

Put in #84 - 110 today, mostly before light and after dark. Does that qualify as having "the sickness"? Most of my taps yielded 1/2 gal + today, and it was cloudy and never got out of the 30's all day. Tonight, 21, tomorrow 40 and sunny. Most of my gal jugs and 5 gal end line containers will probably be running over - I have no way to collect before 6 pm Still need to put the finishing touches on the evaporator.

Skinny - have you collected any sap yet, or have you been too cold?

[skinny78]

We got about 15 gallons today from our 82 taps. I will be hanging my steam hood tomorrow and getting the pan set. Wednesday looks a little better but the long range is still looking pretty cold here.

[Groves]

Mark, let's hope you're not writing checks with your drill that your evaporator and clock can't cash.

[Goggleeye]

Those are the least of my concerns. As of now, I have no wood cut yet for the evaporator, and about the same amount left to heat our home. And my wife told me if I write another check for maple supplies, our bank won't cash it! Glad the weekend and a brother with a chainsaw are coming soon.

[Groves]

Cut. Wood. Fast.

[skinny78]

Started cooking today, we had about 35 gallons of sap and that wasn't even enough to sweeten my pan. Everything working good except my steam hood. I made it 12" wider than my pan and it has an 8' stack on it. I have it hanging from the ceiling and some steam goes up but it is lazy and heavy. I have started messing around with putting a fan up on the top of the stack but it will need a big one. I had an electric leaf blower motor and impeller up there and it helped but it was noisy and cost about nine cents and hour to run. I have been thinking about trying a roof turbine but I don't have one laying around. I have uploaded some pictures of it to my photo bucket if anyone is interested in looking at it.

http://s272.photobucket.com/albums/j...0Syrup%202010/

[The Birdman]

bring your hood down to @16 in above the evap.

[Goggleeye]

Jugs and buckets were overflowing today. At least 100 gal just today. It was cloudy and never got out of the 30's. Right now, I have somewhere between 225-250 gal to boil this weekend, and I expect we'll have another 100 gal by Sat morning. All 120 of my taps are finally set.

My brother coming from KS to help with sugaring picked up my pans on his way here. They are stinkin' awesome. I'll post pictures of the set-up soon. I'm hoping for 30 gal per hour. Now - all I need is wood. Dry wood. We spend most of the evening gathering sap in the rain. Just got in at 9:30.

One of our dairy goats looks like she's going to kid tonight.

Tomorrow's gonna be a 5 cups of coffee day. At least! I'm beginning to think I may have bitten off a bit more than I can chew.