Dave's Maple Syrup Blog » Start up

Sugar shack work

Dave — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:05:02 +0000

Today started out great. We began the day by fixing up the sugar shack. We installed a rudimentary sink drain for the sink . Mike put in some more rafter braces and cut out a few more logs. The Sugar shack looks amazing, much more wide open.

We did not spend much time out in the bush today as the weather was not helping what so ever. We are going to be able to get a few small things done tomorrow before I have to head back down south to Toronto. I really wish I could stay up here from longer but I have to keep working away at my web development stuff.

We took some time to visit with Keith Brown and pay off some bills, we picked up a gripple tool and some mainline ties. We should be all set for tying on the lines early tomorrow morning.

After we came back we leveled out the main evaporator and put in a sink and counter. We also put some insulation between the roof and walls to hold in a bit more heat. It gets nice and toasty in there now.

I will be able to post some videos and pictures when I get back to Toronto.

Thats all for now.

Running main lines, we’re committed now

Dave — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:36:50 +0000

Well it has been a long time since I have posted something on the site. I am back up north for the weekend and Mike and I have a lofty goal of running all the mainline in the large part of the bush. This is about 350 taps and from now on it will called section 1.

I had the misfortune of cutting open my finger after buying a new Remington knife. Beware, I’ll post the picture when I am not on devil Dial-up. It flipped open on the car ride from the Sault less than 20 minutes after I bought it. Not a great start but I am sure it will get better.

The first stop we made on the island was Keith Brown’s. We picked up the wire spooler and the mainline wire. He was nice enough to let us borrow a gripple tool, this was an amazing and time saving device. It helped us get all the wire up in less than two days.

We then had Bill Smith take a walk through the our bush. He took a look at our layout and our plans and said it looked good to him. He did however have some real concerns about our evaporator. We have two really great stainless steel flat pans but there is no way that we will be able to keep up with 500 taps on a 2x 6 pan. We might have to pull back the number of taps we put in this year. It is either that or come up with $4500 for a new flue pan. We are keeping our eyes open for quality used stuff.

We have also made some major modifications to the sugar shack. We replace the rough log roof supports with regular 2×6. This allows us to cut off all the huge logs that run the width of the sugar shack.

Tomorrow we will do some more finishing touches to the sugar shack and put up the main line. We really wanted to get blue line run in the bush but it was not possible to get it here on time, we had to settle for the black stuff that was in stock. There is nothing wrong with the product it just takes a bit more effort to clean.

That’s all, will post tomorrow.

Sap To Syrup Sugar Shack

Mike — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:49:55 +0000

Hey here are a few pics of the Sugar shack upgrades.

Enjoy

Mike

Videos – marking trees and mainline

Dave — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:15:17 +0000

I posted two videos a few day ago of mike and I running around in the bush marking trees and putting up main lines.

As I said I would here they are

Enjoy.

Marking Trees

Marking Main lines

Main line Plan

Dave — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:10:57 +0000

Well Mike and I have been incredibly busy the last few days, mostly clearing brush. Our plan is to eradicate every single balsam on the lot. We also finished layout the rest of the bush. We marked out our 500+ taps with taps with flagging tape, to good new is it was in a much smaller area than we though it was going to be.

This morning we are going to be marking out where our main lines are going to run. I am glad I am up here from this, it is really the foundation for a good bush.
We were chatting last night about how we were going to attach the main line cable to the trees. We don’t want to hurt them but we also don’t want to get too complicated. We agreed on strips of cedar from now as they are quick, cheep and simple. If there are any other ideas out there I would be happy to hear them.

Again it is difficult to deal with this dial up. To make matters worse the website is having trouble uploading pictures. Another thing on the list of things to fix up.