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.

1. Don’t lock the doors
2. The key does not come out of the ignition (the main reason for number one)
3. The Passenger door does not open, (so hopefully a would be thief will go for that one)
4. 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.

]]> http://www.saptosyrup.com/the-stack/feed 0 http://www.saptosyrup.com/back-on-the-island http://www.saptosyrup.com/back-on-the-island#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:58:44 +0000 Dave http://www.davechapman.ca/syrup/?p=6 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!