January Journal

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Yeah, that is what they are saying here too. Probably just cut and skid logs in the AM. That'll keep the horses warm and us too trying to keep up with them.

[twobears1224]

it,s already minus 25 here at 9:20pm and still droppin.

delbert

[red maples]

-25 Wow thats pretty cold. We are tropical -1 here in southern NH.

[sapman]

-3 here right now. The snow is our worst problem. 3.5' on the level. Haven't been to the woods in a few weeks. Hope it's not as bad down there.

[allgreenmaple]

-25 here this morning. Not a chance of pulling the last of the laterals on this 300 + tap bush I have been working on. Wait for another somewhat warmer day. This will push me up to 700-750 taps this year.

[cpmaple]

Right now i have -29 and have been up since 3 because water line froze not working in sugar house today till water is unfrozen cpmaple crown point ny

[twobears1224]

8am and minus 32... in alittle bit i have to head to work.. the school bus i drive has a air door to let the kids on..and it,s either closed or wide open..the guy that invented that sure didn,t live in the north country...

delbert

[Amber Gold]

Eric, Those are some nice touches on the finisher. I like the "kick stand" I prop the tank up with a stack...the kick stand would be nice. You've done some work to your arch with the air tight front. Did you add over fire air as well?

[ennismaple]

We went to our local Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association meeting on Saturday. It was a good turnout and as usual we came away with all kinds of neat tips and other info. The most beneficial were 2 tips from Rejean L - the Force 5 combustion expert. The first was to keep the hatches on the steam hood partially open to speed up evaporation. He said that foam slows down evaporation and that by partially opening the sliding doors you get rid of the foam and allow the gas in the liquid to escape into the air faster. If you've got a pre-heater you need to figure out how much you can open up the hatches without compromising the pre-heater's performance.

Afterwards we asked Rejean about using our auto-runoff and got a great tip from him that should allow for more frequent draw-offs of syrup. For those of you who haven't met Rejean he's a wealth of technical knowledge.

Yesterday we decided to get some work done in the woods, despite the -25 C (-35 C with windchill) temperature. Once we got properly dressed and moving it was actually quite pleasant in the woods. We managed to get the rest of our main bush switched over to stubbies and made a few repairs here and there. In total, we reduced the number of taps in our main bush by over 16% by removing 3rd and 4th taps from trees that have been overtapped for decades. Only a few monster trees have a 3rd tap but the long-term benefit should be worth it.

We still have some work to get done around the sugar camp but we've pretty much finished our work in the woods and could tap tomorrow if we needed to. It won't be long until we're thinking about charging up the drills!

[red maples]

Rejean was at the NH annual meeting last year. He sat with us and ate lunch the guy is pretty amazing. he really knows his stuff. When I talke dto him last year he had a bunch of things he was working on, Smaller more effiecient evaps2x6 2x8 drop flues, whole house wood boilers, amoung other other things.

Our NH annual meeting this year the hot topic was the changing of the grading system. Wow can of worms there!!! and the VT McDonalds dispute over the Oatmeal. We wanna get in on that too.

I wanted to work in the SH house today but ended up shoveling off the roof. there was a lot of snow packed up there!!! we could get 0-12 inches of snow on wed/thurs. so now I am almost ready I have a little more to go I'll do it tomorrow!!!