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Diary - 2002 Sugaring Season Pictures are thumb nailed. Click on any picture to enlarge.
April 1 - April 7 Well that's that! Mother Nature shut off the trees quickly this year. Spent the last weekend cleaning tubing, cleaning buckets, cleaning the sugarhouse, cleaning collection tanks, cleaning the evaporator, cleaning lines, cleaning the storage tanks. A lot of sugarmakers leave this until next Winter. I like to get it done now when it's warm. As soon as the tubing dries, we will go around to plug the spiles and take down any tubing that has to come down. March 28 - March 31 Warming up almost every day now. Got some sap and boiled most of Saturday. Pulled some taps on buckets because the tree has stopped running or is producing yellow sap. Made some really good Dark Amber syrup. Easter Sunday the temperature got almost to 60. March 25-27 Chilly with a snow, sleet, and rain storm. Fairly decent sap runs. Making Medium and Dark Amber syrup now. One lot that we tap runs downhill away from the road and is usually the last one that we pick up. With the schedule this year it is usually dark when I carry the pump down to the tank in the woods. It has been nice the last week because the Moon has been out. It's surprising how much light there is once your eyes get used to the moonlight. Still, the Moon doesn't illuminate every slippery rock or small branch ready to hit you in the face. The long range weather forecast seems to show that we will run at least through this week and into next. The trees are changing. The sap isn't as clear and the runs are smaller and weaker. In the beginning of the season a sunny day would produce a great run of clear sap. Beautiful clear days with white snow. Now, what snow is left, or that falls, turns to slush. Not pretty and not fun to work in. Come on Spring. The Montisorri school stopped by on the 26th to take a look at our little operation and have a bite to eat. Nice group of kids. March 23-24 Maine Maple Sunday on the 24th. We look forward to this all year. This is a State sponsored open house for sugarmakers. We always have a great time meeting and talking to people that drop by. Always seems that folks are sooo glad to get out of the house this time of year. Still pretty chilly. Picked up some sap here and there. Some taps have dried up and others are producing yellow sap (which is thrown away). Yuk. Some pics from Maine Maple Sunday. Is one of these fine folks you?
How about some fresh syrup young man?
Hot syrup going through the filter into the canning
tank.
Do you see it boiling in there??
March 18-22 One weeping run and one good run after a snowstorm. Today (Friday) is cold, cold, cold, with a 20 mph wind blowing. Going to take today off and boil. Least it will be warm in the sugarhouse. Today the kindergarten class from Lincolnville Central School is dropping by.
March 15 - 17 Boiled like mad on Friday. Made some really good syrup. Cold Saturday and Sunday so had time to do some repairs and get ready for Maine Maple Sunday on March 24. This next week looks OK with three days that the sap should run. March 12-14 Had a rainstorm and fog move in. Trees ran all night on the 13th. Got home late and picked up sap in the dark and the fog. Terrible driving. As the tank on the truck filled up the headlights tipped up into the fog. Hard to keep on the road. Another good run on the 14th. No rain and plenty of sun. March 9-11 Drizzle run on Friday; good run on Saturday night; cold Sunday and Monday. Boiled all day Sunday. Looks good for the end of the week. March 1 - 8 Had some good runs this week. Made 27 gallons of syrup early in the week. The end of the week the weather turned cold and stopped everything. This is what our evaporator looks like now.
Ahh, all of that work and finally we get to make some syrup.
Here are a few pictures of buckets hung. Very nice day when this was taken.
February 22 - 28 Got the pans set on the new arch, put the oil burner in, ran the new oil lines and electrical connections just in time. Season is starting a week early this year!! Started tapping on 2/23. Tapped like mad and got it done. Ran some new pipeline. Good looking trees; remains to be seen how well they produce.
February 11 - 21 Have gotten most of landowner permission. As always, very, very nice folks to deal with. Moved the old arch out and the new arch in. This is a photo of the arch in place.
Next, the ceramic insulation was put in. Itchy stuff to handle but much easier than firebrick!! Here an end has been fitted and secured with Inconel
washers.
The combustion chamber and the table are finished.
February 1 - 10 Started calling landowners to get permission to tap this year. Finished installing the electrical and oil line conduits on the arch. Waiting for one more pin to arrive to finish the metal work and put the insulation in.
January The larger evaporator we got last year worked well but we wanted to put an arch under it that was designed to burn oil more efficiently. Much of the fall was spent doing research and we decided to give it a whirl in January. Here steel is being cut for the frame
Front view of the combustion chamber
This arch will use ceramic blanket insulation instead of conventional fire brick. The insulation is held in place by a series of Inconel pins. A frame was made to hold the pins and they were welded on. The following picture shows the "bed of nails" look of the pins in the deep part of the chamber.
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