Quote Originally Posted by GeneralStark View Post
Yes and in addition to spare VFDs I someday hope to have a spare vacuum pump and releaser, RO, evaporator and perhaps a spare sugarhouse or two.... and perhaps a spare of me so when I get tired I can send them to work. I guess that is what my daughter is for though at 14 months of age she isn't much help yet....
We do have a spare vacuum pump (and a backup liquid ring pump to that) just in case, a spare submersible pump for our RO, and a spare VFD. We tend to divide our woods into sections, and instead of having one huge pump we'll run a couple smaller pumps side-by-side, but have them plumbed so we can easily run two sections off either pump if necessary or when we need to shut down for maintenance. No spare RO, but we do have an extra frontpan for the evaporator just in case. We do try to keep some spare seals/O-rings around just in case, and sometimes a pump motor or we'll check to be sure the manufacturer has a spare on the shelf just in case.

As for me...I've been out of the raising kids business for a while now, but daughter is expecting our first grandchild this summer, so will likely be traveling to Ohio a good bit in the next few years. At work I'm handing off some of my duties to technicians and the Maple Operations Manager...so probably won't be boiling this year or running the woods research chambers much, and will begin handing off more of the administrative duties to Dr. Abby over the next 1.3 yrs before I cut down to 1/2 time for a few years. Got a lot of analysis and writing to do, so no problem keeping busy.