February journal

[CaseysSugarHouse]

been real busy in the woods getting everything ready. 1300 taps in. hope to tap the rest tomorrow. getting releasers and pumps out and then just waiting on mother nature



NATE

[Wanabe1972]

Well we had a busy week here trying to get ready. Got my buddy on Friday to dig through a 4 foot snow bank with his bobcat so I could set my tank and releaser up. Got the releaser plumbed up and waded through a good 18 to 20 inchs of snow to finish up a dozen entrences on the new mainline. Sunday my daughter and I plowed out the sugar house with the backhoe so we could give it a rough cleaning. Monday we tapped in the bush with vacuum and fired the pump up for a few minutes to check for leaks and found the releaser has a leak some where. Today we washed the pans down again and plumbed up the evaporator. Wed. if it gets above freezing we are going to pressure wash head tank and barrels for my seasonal lines. Possibly we can tap in the 50 or so seasonals at my parents. I will do the 50 or so around the house on Thursday morning before bed because i just went back to night shift for 4 months. Seems like no matter what I do IM always behind the 8 ball, but its still a little early here. At least this year there is not a snow storm forcasted last year we tapped early to beat a storm that dropped 2 feet on feb 24.

[whalems]

Got the rebuilt arch bricked and mortared today. Need to install the stack and put on pan gasket and it will be ready for some test boils. I plan on doing several small fires to help cure the mortar and season the bricks.

[peacemaker]

so ups is something .... last Tuesday i ordered my taps for this year should have been here weds so i could tap on Thursday and Friday.. they where a no show so today i finally find out they went to the Ehrich road house which we use to live at lets see maybe 8 years ago
lol
way to go ups

[jrthe3]

chris maybe tapping earl was i good thing cause i got a lot of kinks large and huge worked out but this first run cost me a lot of money so i only about a 100 gallons of syrup to pay for all the broken parts

[802maple]

I am not to enthusiastic about going out again today but I guess I can't let -14 bother me. This global warming really gets under my skin, I wish it would just cool off.

[whalems]

Well I did a test run this morning on the rebuilt arch and AOF system. It went pretty well. I need a different blower for next season but it is time to stop spending money on this project for this year Over all I was happy with the results. This will be my first year on a real evaporator so I have alot of learning to do, But am looking forward to the adventure I need to get about 200 more taps run for a total of 600. But it looks like I have at least another week before we start getting good weather. Good luck all, Mike

[Dennis H.]

Man is this frustrating. 2nd day of warm temps but no sun and both 3/4" lines going into the releasers are frozen solid!
The other day the temps dropped when I was boiling and did noticed it and the releasers froze along with the main's coming into them.
I looked and the lat's are they are thawed.

Then the other thing is the pipe that I use to pump sap from the 200gal tank up to the head tank remains frozen. So there is no way to start to boil the 50 or so gals of sap either.
Man this sucks.

[adk1]

Man is this frustrating. 2nd day of warm temps but no sun and both 3/4" lines going into the releasers are frozen solid!
The other day the temps dropped when I was boiling and did noticed it and the releasers froze along with the main's coming into them.
I looked and the lat's are they are thawed.

Then the other thing is the pipe that I use to pump sap from the 200gal tank up to the head tank remains frozen. So there is no way to start to boil the 50 or so gals of sap either.
Man this sucks.

yup, pretty much nothing you can do until mother nature decides to warm the place up alittle!

[3rdgen.maple]

I keep saying its early yet and if this is going to be anything like a normal year then we are back to the march sap runs like it should be. Yes its fustrating I too have a frozen releaser and lines everywhere. Forecast is what kills me. Within 30 minutes they change it. One minute you look and theres a good run coming today friday sunday and monday. Few minutes later no run today friday sunday just monday. How do you plan when those friggin idiots have no clue. Wish I had a job that I could f*^K up everyday and still make good money.