A sweet end
Well yesterday was amazing. I tapped about 21 trees but I spend most of the day fixing things that needed to be fixed. Bill told me that he had a pellet gun so we took it to the bush.., and if we were target practicing with the pellet gun and a squirrel happens to walk in front of it., we can’t be held responsible for the fact that the little devil spawn got in the way. We went through about 800L of sap that day. I forgot how much work it really is to be running around like that, checking levels, checking temperature. I was able to have those amazing drinks too. Every time I had a one I was happy I was not drinking an Ottawa, stupid pancake, non alcoholic, over priced, what the shit! Beaver Tails,I felt great.
Today there was a bit of a blizzard, we went out there but, ya know, there was nothing really to do. We did not fire up and make any syrup, we kinda fixed little things and drank a few cold beaver tails. I really like making syrup for some strange reason. It seems to me there is enough to learn here that I could study forever. I don’t think Bill would care if he turned a profit or not. I also think the bug has got me on this one.
I will be back next year!
I HATE squirrls
Hey so no real pictures put together over the last few day. So I just give you a little synopsis. The last two days in the bush have been pretty good. I now know what type of animal the devil has come back as… a squirrel. I hate squirrels they are responsible for most of the damage in Bills sugar bush. What the little tree rats do is bite holes in the lines in order to get the water out of them. When this happens you have to cut out the pipe that is affected and put in new pipe. The problem is they do this every few feet! For most of the day yesterday all we did was replace lines that the squirrels have bitten holes in. I was thinking about getting a gun so that I could kill as many as I can. I think I would derive a lot more satisfaction from it now that I understand their purpose.
Bill was not in the bush today so I went back there myself to clean up and to put up some shelves. The shack looks great now. The floors are all clear and there is a ton of extra counter space. Most of the stuff out in the bush is done. In the last two days we tapped 307 trees which is a good number considering the amount of time we spent fixing. This puts his bush up to a grand total of 1890 taps. He would like to get it up to about 2000 which he considers a full bush and we might be able to do that tomorrow.
I also had a chance to go for a drink down at the local bar (the only bar here is the legion), It brought me back. I took Nathan and Steve out for a beer for all the help they gave my mom and Bill. I forgot about the rules at the legion. No swearing and No wearing your hat, if you are caught doing one of the two you have to buy everyone in the bar a round. Since it was cribbage night I was glad no one caught me.
I can’t believe that my time here is almost up, I really like being back on the Island. I also forgot how small a place this is. Out of 5 people on the street I know 4 of them, it’s a quite place. Things here move slowly and people are not in any particular rush to do much. I think it is that fact that makes me feel like this is a vacation. It certainly isn’t the 14h days of hard labour.
Video added
So it looks like it is not impossible to upload videos it just takes about 5 hours. So here is the video from the Tree burning.
First run and tree buring
Well yesterday was pretty full, first thing we did was get the truck stuck, not to bad though. We were also able to put in 140 taps. The real problem started when the electric motor for the vacuum system stopped working. We have to get that fixed tomorrow (it had to break over the weekend).
The tree burning ceremony went really well. Our theme was “presents under the tree” we used the plethora of cardboard boxes from the garage and some stove oil as the fuel. It was stacked with fireworks and went up great. I have video but, you know ….Dial up. The whole thing was choreographed to some funk music, really cool.
So I also had a chance to see Mike and Steph last night. Mike has been working on some great songs and brought over a few CDs. We stayed up way way to late last night so I was in no condition to go out to the bush today. Instead I went to play out on the ice which is breaking up right now. We called it burging when the ice starts to break up you can ride the iceburgs around, it’s a buzz. I also had a little friend out there with me today. A mink ran out onto the ice right beside me and started fishing, it was pretty cool. I have video of that as well but you know…Dial up (how do people live like this?)
We finally got the boiler all put together and pulled off the first run of syrup. His new setup is beautiful! Everything is stainless steel. The new evaporator works like a dream and it doesn’t take nearly the same amount of wood to keep going. So everything is in place and we can really start hammering down and producing maple syrup.
the STACK!
Well day two and I am so tired and sore, but the most evil project in history is complete and there were no fatalities. The Stack is UP! It’s stacked.
The day started off O.K. I was up at around 5:45 and had a real greasy breakfast. I had to drive Ann, Bills girlfriend, to the Sault for some sort of eye appointment. Now when you go up to the Sault there are a number of people who hear this through the grapevine, now you are a pack mule. There are lists of thing to get, things that need to be dropped off and sometime people to pick up.
I am not sure the kind of car I was driving, all identifying featured had rusted off, were painted over of from another vehicle. So before I took D.H.’s Chrysler-Hond-a-Buick on the trip there were a few things that I had to remember.
- Don’t lock the doors
- The key does not come out of the ignition (the main reason for number one)
- The Passenger door does not open, (so hopefully a would be thief will go for that one)
- The trunk latch does not work right (you have to push it back to the closed position)
Some other really fun facts I learned from experience about the vehicle were things like the dog lease holding up the bumper, 3 of the 4 windows worked , no windshield wipers and there was little to no muffler. I was also warned that one of the ball joins was loose and that if I drove it like a racecar the front wheel could fall off. “Don’t worry”, he said, “the Car is old enough to drive itself”. Mostly I just picked up cheep smokes and fireworks.
Once back at the bush we set to work putting the stack together. Now there is a little lid on the top of the stack that has a leaver you can pull in order to shut the top so rain water doesn’t get in. Well after a number of seemingly smart Ideas we broke this lever…production stopped.
“Who do you know that can weld stainless steal on a Thursday afternoon?” after some discussion about the many individuals that could do it they decided on the one who was most likely to be the soberest. By some sort of weird miracle it was welded and back on site within an hour, the cost…. an undisclosed amount of maple syrup that would soon be harvested(it’s as good as cash…well credit anyway).
Now for that stack….that big…..cumbersome…..heavy…. STACK. Here are some pictures.
Notice the rig consists of a ladder fully extended, you would think it was totally inadequate. I thought it was going to break from the moment we started. I have never seen a ladder under that much stress in my life. The roof has such a sharp peek it was unreal so and trying to maneuver this thing into place standing on a rickety old ladder with the boss saying “now careful of some of these runs, they are close to breaking”. We ended up taking one of the 4′ piece off the stack so that we could the the thing on. So instead of an 18′ stack he only has a 14′ stack. Well I lived and I am tired I have to get an early start tomorrow, we SHOULD be boiling.
Tomorrow is also the tree burning ceremony, stay tuned.
IH8-DU.
Back on the Island
Well I have made it, Beauty! It is great to be up here! To give you an example of what I mean here is a picture from the front door of my place in Toronto:
And here is a one from the front door at from the bunk house at the homestead on St. Joseph Island (do you see the little boat?):
I disembarked from the plane at about 1:30 and made it out to the bush at about 4:00, after shopping for supplies. My first time back on snowshoes in about 7 years was tricky to say the least. There is a TON of work to be done before we are ready to start boiling. The stack is not on the sugar shack just as I had suspected. This is a job for….. tomorrow. (shit)
I hate dial up!
2.0 Kbps is inhuman, It took me two beer to write this post.
IH8-DU
Here is my first view of this glorious building, notice no Smoke Stack (I know I keep bringing it up but it really is going to suck installing it).
And here is The owner Bill Smith inside the Sugar shack, he is the happiest guy I know! 
