January Journal

[farmall h]

Spent 3 hrs. up in the bush today resetting latterals and fixing deer/squirrel chew. Had a big old maple break from the top a couple weeks ago. Cleaned that mess up. One less tree to tap. Light snow today, about 12" in the woods so far. Won't be long now.

[Paddymountain]

Got up this morning feeling quite sick(not a party animal) Sick headache and felt limp as a dishcloth. Alternated from recliner to bed all day. Didn't get on my feet til about 7:30 tonite. Have to get in shape got two pigs to butcher tomorrow. The son came up and he and the wife got everthing ready.Wanted to help but could'nt muster up the strength . He said save it for tomorrow,
guess we need someone to cut things up and make scrapple. Need a few things yet for maple and also got 40 road trees with huge tops on,have to figure out how to fit them in!!!
happy mapleing!!!

[Revi]

My new year's resolutions are to have a good sugar season without the hassles we had last year, lose 25 lbs. (the sugar season helps with that one) and to generally have a good time this year.

We walked around town in a snowstorm and it was nice today.

If that's a harbinger for the year, I'm okay with it so far.

[Farmboy]

Wow the yamaha grizzlys haul. My uncle come down to my farm with his yamaha grizzly 700. We went riding then put 2 sleds behind it and pulled them around the feild. Going 30mph on a hard plastic sled across a field can hurt but it was fun. I didn't get anything maple done but it was fun. I will work on my sugar shack all weekend. I did ring some pans on craigslist. They are stainless flatpans. I am going to call him tomorrow. It will be an improvment over the half pint.

[KenWP]

Spent 3 hrs. up in the bush today resetting latterals and fixing deer/squirrel chew. Had a big old maple break from the top a couple weeks ago. Cleaned that mess up. One less tree to tap. Light snow today, about 12" in the woods so far. Won't be long now.

You should have left a tall stump. I tapped a couple busted off trees. They gave sap. As long as the tree busted off after the summer.

[vtsnowedin]

Light snow here today and not as cold as last week. I cut up two bundles of slab wood my neighbor delivered the other day. One more bundle to go plus a pile of dry ones I hauled in last summer. Yesterday I started drilling out the rivets in the flue half of the arch to change the rusted out glavy sheet metal on that end of the arch. Put a pencil through the sides anywhere near the stack. Must have spent some summers with the stack open and rain coming down the pipe. No easier time to change it then now while I have all the bricks out of it. I have to find a sheet metal shop that can bend me up three pieces to fit using the old as a pattern. The bottom sheet looked OK from the underside but when I got it apart all the seam overlap was gone so that has to come out to. That piece runs all the way down the ramp to the blower wall at the back of the firebox. I could cut it at the top of the ramp but a joint there with the load of bricks it carries is probably not a good idea.

[farmall h]

Kenwp, the old tree is in the wood pile for the outdoor boiler. At least the top anyway. I'm sure it still has sap in it. Removed the lines already. It must have been 200 yrs. old at least. Probably one of the oldest trees in the bush. I'll cremate the rest of her come summer time!

[Revi]

Sounds like the Tessier sugar shack is going to be really nice.

I'd love to check it out some time.

We are still snowed in up on the hill.

Slippery driving up there this morning!

I walked to the top of the hill with the dog in high boots on the last day of the year, but I think I'll need my snowshoes now.

The snow is really piling up now.

[TroutBrookSH]

Not much focus on sugaring related activities the last several months, other than cutting wood.

My wife and I added some livestock to the maple farm -- 10 alpacas. They seem to draw a crowd now, and we're hoping they'll do the same come March.

Heading to VVS for the NYS Maple Conference next weekend. Time to re-focus priorities!

Greg

[Brian Ryther]

Starting to cut out all of the tree saver spouts and replacing them with stubbies. I wanted to wait to do this until temps were going to stay below freezing until tap time to help keep the new taps bacteria free. I wasn't thinking about my cold fingers when I came up with this plan in June.