november journal

[stoweski]

Helped my neighbor clear the fenceline to his fields today cleared one section of 200 acres of fields. We were cutting pretty good size branches that I get to use for the evaporator.

While working with him he took me out to his back field with some woods. Only 2-3 acres of woods but had some nice sugar maples. Said I could tap them if I wanted to. I didn't get a good count but I'd say easily 50 decent trees... some over 2' dia! My only problem is getting out there every day to empty buckets. Though he did say I could run lines if I wanted to. Gave him a quart last year for his help on my property... he still hasn't finished it! Guess he gets a year supply of syrup for letting me tap his woods.

Guess I have some exploring to do tomorrow!

[Dennis H.]

Things are getting done now.
Took a few hours off work the other day to get things done while it is still light out. Got the evap now ready to go. The feed tank is hung and plumbed into the evap. The milk tank is cleaned and my releaser is cleaned and put back on the wall at the milk tank. I fired up the vac and had it running at 23" of vac no problem.

So right now I could fire up the evap and boil if I wanted to. I will have to do that anyway soon to get the floats set correctly and to cure the fire bricks.

[Sugarmaker]

Several hours of deer hunting in the morning and afternoon. With time in between to help Eric process his nice 8 point that he got in West Springfield this morning. I had a small buck and three baldies go by this morning. So we will be having venison in the near future.
Maple:
I have to pick up some stainless next week for another maple related project.
Almost out of syrup I think I have about 1.5 gallons left of the "good" stuff!
Hope things are good out there in all of maple land

Regards,
Chris

[Parker]

Was up in Hill most of the day..got "Proqupine hollow" in much better shape..got to lug 2 more rolls of lateral line up in there and deploy them,,Many improvements and additions happening there soon..Cut a maple that was slowly taking my conductor lines down up there and the sap wa gushing,,,yes gushing out of if,,,,did not taste too sweet though...

[Revi]

I had to cut some small reds that were bent over by a fallen tree and they were gushing sap today as well. It froze last night, so I guess this is what makes fall tapping possible. I'm not doing it.

I was hunting maple today and found some new ones that have grown into the ten inch class. I ran out of marking tape. We'll have to connect them into the system, when we get the money for more tubing. It was a gorgeous day here. Almost 60 degrees and sunny. At one point I had to take my sweatshirt off because I was sweating.

[twobears1224]

i worked on firewood today.i would of had everything picked up in that area but,i backed the tractor up on a brushpile and THUMP!! i was sitting on a tree stump highcentered.luckly,a friend of mine drove by and i stopped him..he has a small farm right by where i,am cutting wood and he brought his 4x4 tractor over.
i,am not sure what i,ll do tomorrow.i,de like to finish that bunch of wood and i,de also like to get my drip edge and get my roof done.ii guess we,ll see what tomorrow brings.

delbert

ps:it,s fun seeing what you guys are doing and seeing the excitment build.

[Gary R]

Bought another vacuum pump. It's a Gast 2567. Can't have too many pumps Without vacuum I won't get sap because of the ladders.

Archery season has ended here. I spent about 70 hours in tree stands this season. My only close encounter during shooting hours was last night. I got him. An eight point. Not too big, but a deer with the bow.

[sweetwoodmaple]

Congrats Gary! I am the same way on pumps, I need an extra just to run the ladders.

I built a 2nd wood shed (8' x 10') to try to get more wood under roof this year. I need to prepare for a great year to help make up for 2010!

I also completed a metal roof over my releaser and tanks yesterday. Looks a little less cheesy than that tarp (that was in the photo).

[Amber Gold]

Yesterday I spent the day in the woods and got more laterals up finishing up that section of the woods. Today I got up the last mainline. Progress was pretty slow as I was hoping to get all the laterals up on it as well, but it didn't happen...next weekend.

I'm also going to run short on tubing. I bought 13 or 14 rolls when I was estimating 500 taps. Either I'm finding more trees than I estimate or I'm not getting as many taps in per roll...hopefully it's the former.

[Parker]

My daughters and I were in the woods this afternoon,,Emma found the lost one hander!!! Man that makes me happy!!! Hate loosing tools.....Got the wire pulled to replace the bad mainline @ sanborns,,just got to get the 3/4 out there tie it up and drill saddels,,,think I can get another 100 over there if I put in a ladder,,,