Today in the Sugar Bush

We started gathering sap at 9:00 this morning, 8 of us. One cousin stayed in the sap house and lit the boilers.Today was the first that we gathered since Tuesday the 17th. During that period we had to lite maintainance fires twice to keep the evaporator pans loaded with sap from freezing and rupturing. Fires were just enough to thaw them out. We still had a brass shutoff valve on the storage tank lines split open and had to replace it.
In the bush to day we didn't collect a lot of sap as the buckets still had a lot if ice in them. We pour the liquid sap into our gathering buckets and then dump the ice in the ground. The gathered sap is very sweet as the sugar doesn't freeze at the same temp as water. We got out 4 275gal loads before a Thunder Storm rattled through and soaked everyone other than my uncle and me. (sure is nice to sit in a heated cab). HeHe. The guys are still gathering on snow shoes. We were hopeing to gather the whole bush today, but it was a lot of work for the amount of sap we were getting. My cousin Mike was pushing the evaporators today figuring on more sap, but we had to shut them down around 2:00 because the sap was getting low. We had to literally put the fires out with snow so we wouldn't burn the pans, after the last batch was drawn. He was able to pull off 26gal of syrup today.
After we shut down I headed for home down the farm road, and all the melting snow was running down the road and washing it out so I decided to pull over in the field and divert the water to the ditch along the road. Well I found a "slow spot", and the uncle had to pull me out with the MFD loader tractor, and then he opened up the rest of the ditch down to the bottom of the hill.
The rain continued on during the afternoon, and it is now turning to snow again.
The weather forcast isn't looking to good for makeing syrup for the next week.
Loren, the Acg.

440 briefly stuck and troubled, who got out and hooked the chain ? You must keep some spares around for the plumbing and such when the weather freezes things up.

This weather has not been cooperative, I can't even describe it, woodstove downstairs was going as if it was 6 weeks ago, even been splitting blocks meant for next year to fill my gardenway carts to bring inside and keep a fire going. '12 was mild, no snow to speak of and I used half as much firewood, shut it down for the season in March that year. Mentioned it below in Stans post, I'm into the 5th cord this season now, have not burned that much in recent memory through this stove.

Well at least the weather was decent for you yesterday, dad is doing fine today, so I am relieved.

Had our cooker going to today. Sure aint as fancy as a large set up.
<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto18171.jpg"/>
firebox Made from old fuel oil storage tank
<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto18172.jpg"/>
Our storage system isn't as fancy either.
<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto18173.jpg"/>
That milk strainer we use to filter the sap and "syrup" out of the pan. We cook it down so far in the pan then finish in a kettle on the stove. The trailer is full of wood and the skids in background are also to be busted down for fuel.

Glad you were able to start back up! My daughter loved the iced over sap in the pans, I picked her up to show her, and that was all she wanted to see, then she saw Jon checking the buckets when we were out back, so then she wanted me to show her, and check the sap in the buckets! Lol, I hope you guys finish up good.

next thing, you're going to need 4wd on that case.

Up here in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin, the sap has been flowing real heavy for the past week. Ideal day and night temps. By next Tuesday it is supposed to warm up with nights in the high 30s....that might be it for the season.
LA in WI

Realy boiled for the first time yesterday. Made almost 25 gallons. The vacuum pump is acting up, my son went up to check it at "oh-my-god o'clock" this morning, found it rattling pretty good from low oil, and shut it down. I am going to look at it first thing and try to figure out where the oil is going, suspect leak around the fill port on the lower housing. The pump was not designed to be operated the way we have it set up, and the port is just sealed with a push in plug with an o-ring. I have a strap bolted over the plug to hold it in, and it may have loosened up. If I have time I may also replace the brass bushing in the dead end of the shaft.

We take the 4Her's to a friends sugar house tomorrow afternoon. That's after many of them finish with the Easter Egg Hunt/Spring Kids Fling at church. Gonna be a busy weekend.

I'm glad it's warmed up but mud season is not anyone favorite time of the year. It's funny how you can go from instantly sick to death of ice and snow to the same for mud. Just can't make people happy I guess.

Here in North central Maine we are still waiting for a decent first run. Still as much as 4 feet of snow in the woods. A few of the south-facing trees are beginning to run. We have had to plow paths in to the roadside trees to put up lines and pails, such a laborious job! We are still trying to predict what sort of a season it will be for us!

Sounds like you're doin your part to win the battle. Keep it up! Thank you for sharing pictures of the process. I really enjoy reading your posts ACG.