Farm Easier!

Here we go again! I keep saying I’m not going to take on any
new projects before I finish all the ones I’ve started, but I
can’t seem to help myself. I took the kids out on Wednesday
and they each bought a newborn calf. We trained them to
drink their milk from buckets, and they are really doing good.
My excuse is that I would have to spend time cutting grass
around the barns this summer anyway, so we’ll get some calves
and they can eat it. Nothing goes to waste around here, not
even the grass! So, its a win win win situation. We get to
have cattle again, I don’t have to cut the grass, and we’ll have
grass-fed beef to sell by Christmas 2010!

The Heavy Duty StaFast Hitch uses an 1-1/4″ hitch pin and 3/4″ thick drawbar plates.  It lets farmers pull wagons with 13-ton or larger running gears without climbing off the tractor hitch or unhitch the wagon.  As fast as he can back up (*click* the automatic hitch connects to the wagon) and drive away, he can hitch his wagon, then pull a rope from the tractor seat to unhitch.  The drawbar plates on the Heavy Duty StaFast Hitch used to be 1-1/2″ apart, but sometimes they were too close together to slide over a tractor drawbar.  Alot of newer tractor drawbars are 2″ thick, so now the Heavy Duty StaFast Hitch has been improved so the drawbar plates are 2-1/8″ apart.  The Heavy Duty Hitch can now fasten onto new tractor drawbars.  Spacers or shims are available for tractors with smaller drawbars so the hitch still bolts tightly to any tractor.  Give me a call if you have questions about the Heavy Duty  StaFast Hitch.

Our older hens are starting to come out of their molt now, so
our egg production is picking up. We prefer to recycle used
egg cartons rather than buy new since there is no need to
throw away usefull things! I suppose I’m practical to a fault
sometimes, but anyway, if you have empty egg cartons, save
them and bring them by when you’re in the area.

Its really something to see those chickens out enjoying the
warm weather. I think they like it better than we do. They
peck up every new blade of grass that greens up, so hopefully
I won’t need to mow between the barns this year.

This is the official end of sugar season. The Sugar Maples budded yesterday. This morning we finished boiling the last of our sap. Total syrup production for the year is 98 gallons. Not as good as last year but, much better than we expected from the mediocre weather.

Fox 17 sent out a reporter and a cameraman this morning to do a story on maple syrup. The reporter had to borrow a pair of my mud boots as she didn’t expect to be tramping through a muddy sugarbush. Fox 17 plans to air the footage tonight or you can see it on the web at www.wxmi.com then click on “local news”.

We had a near disaster this morning while Fox 17 was doing the recording. Our finish and flue pans together are 10’ x 3’. They evaporate about 50 gallons of water an hour. It takes about 80 gallons of sap to keep them at the right level and more sap is continuously flowing in. This morning, we were finishing the last of the sap so, the supply was limited. I built a nice big fire in the fire-arch under the pan so that the cameraman could get some good footage. I was not paying attention to the sap level in the pan. All of a sudden, we had syrup in 3 channels, a roaring fire, and no more sap to add. We were about to lose our pans (if syrup goes past 67% sugar, it quickly burns; goes to ash, then the pans overheat and melt). I could smell the syrup scorching. It became obvious that something drastic had to be done. Thankfully, I had hauled 10 gallons of fresh water back to the sugarbush this morning on a whim. I threw it into the pan and scraped the burning logs back out of the fire. We lost a few gallons of syrup but, the last time I checked into new pans, it was about $6,000. So, I’m just thankful to have my pans.

Although this is the end of the sap season, I am not done with my work until the buckets, spiels, pans, tanks, and pipelines are scrubbed, sanitized and put away. This usually takes me another week. It is not much fun since there is nothing to look forward to.

It is nice to be done and move back to a normal schedule, have clean coats, go to bed at a decent hour, eat normal food, etc. but, my family and I really enjoy the time we have together back in the woods. I think that is why we make syrup, because we can do it together and our family eats about 10 gallons a year. That would be a major dent in our food budget if we had to purchase all that syrup.

I’ve been working full time and keeping the sugarbush going, so forgive the lack of entries.  This is our eleventh boil.  What a funny year.  Some days the conditions are perfect…25 degrees at night and 50 degrees in the day, but only a drizzle of sap.  We still have been boiling it, even when we only get a 100 gallons of sap.  We boil a little each night, roasting hotdogs and making smores by the fire.  Its actually quite fun.  We’re up to 96 gallons of syrup now, but only half of it is bottled.  I’ll catch up on bottling when I’m finished with the last sap run.  The last two weeks have been quite warm, so the syrup has been getting darker now.  We’ll have a good supply of both Grade A and Grade B syrup this year.  Not a bad production season, even though its been goofy results from the weather.

The second boil has been a long time in coming but, that is somewhat typical.

Tonight we pulled off 141 1bs. of finished syrup.

Total syrup production thus far 18 gallons.

This morning we boiled our first sap.

Even though it is raining, the sap is clear. The temperature is perfect. The low last night was 25 and it got up to 46 this afternoon. We pulled off 64 lbs. of finished syrup. Pure maple syrup is 11 lbs. per gallon so, we have almost 6 gallons of syrup for the season. The first boil never yields as much as I expect since it takes about 80 gallons of sap just to fill the pans.

We have to make an emergency trip to Illinois tomorrow morning because of a death in the family. Several people who knew we were coming called and asked for syrup. My wife is in our commercial kitchen filtering and bottling the syrup right now. When I went and checked on her, she showed me that the syrup graded “Grade A fancy”. This is kind of surprising because the syrup gets darker if rain water gets into the sap. We must have done a good job keeping our buckets and tanks covered.

Grade A Fancy looks pretty, but I prefer the darker syrup with more “maple” flavor. It is completely a matter of preference.

After the pans cooled down, I had to go back to the woods and drain my pans. If sap freezes in the flue pan, the seams break and then I would have to replace the pan. It is supposed to get really cold this weekend while we’re gone.

Today we tapped the trees.
This is always one of the most exciting times of Syrup Season. Being ready to go …..So, I can quit stewing when the temperature gets above freezing.
It is hard to know exactly when to tap. If one taps the trees too early, he might miss out on a lot of sap. Healthy trees (the only ones I tap) self heal the tap holes in 6 weeks…which means, I’m done. I know that some producers re-tap but, I don’t think it’s very common anymore. It is not good for the tree.
We put out about 275 spiles into 150 trees. Thirty of the spiles are in buckets, the rest run into pipelines that gravity feed into one of two tanks set in the low spots. We do a maximum of 2 taps per tree.
We are in the process of converting to “tree saver” spiles. With old style spiles the hole drilled into the tree is 7/16. The new style is 5/16. We started replacing the old taps with the smaller ones 2 years ago. I was amazed at how much faster the tap holes healed using the “tree saver” spiles. It is estimated that production from the “tree saver” spiles drops 20% but, I havent’t noticed that big of a drop, and I think it’s worth it for the health of the sugarbush.

My daughter helped me lift and sanitize the tubing today. A big job, glad it’s done. Now, we just have to wait for a day above freezing in which to tap the trees and put the spiles in.
If one taps a tree when it is below freezing, the tree splits and sap runs down the split and not the spile. It is a bad deal for the tree and the syrup producer.
A few years ago my wife and I were out tapping. All of a sudden, two trees split. I could see a little hairline crack run up the bark from my drill bit. We decided to give up and go in the house. When I got back to the house and checked the thermometer, the temperature had fallen to 30 degrees.

We had company today so, I had help. I had a two other strong young men who could go back to the sugarbush and help me set the flue and finish pans on the fire arch. They are not that heavy, but each one is 5’ long and 3’ wide. Dropping them would be a major problem. The finish pan is a flat pan with 4 channels and square edges. The flue pan is about 16” deep but, instead of having a flat bottom, it is shaped like a comb. The bottom of the pan goes over 1”, down 7”, over1”, up 7”, all the way across. Damaging one corner of one of those flues results in the need for a new pan. A new set of pans is about $6,000.
Every year I am thankful when the clean pans are set on the arch without smashed edges and leaks.