Hurricane Farm

Last weekend we started to put the roof together for our sugar shack.  It will ultimately be an open-walled pole structure to house our maple syrup evaporator.  We'll be able to make much more syrup once we're able to get a roof overhead the whole operation.  No more standing around in the cold drizzle!

The first task in getting up the roof was to set the ridge pole over the center of the framing.  I got the longest 2 x 8 available, but I still wish it was a few feet longer so I could have an nice overhang on the end.  I have an idea as to how to make an overhang in a slightly different way, so it will still probably work out.

Next we had to measure out the angles for the rafters.  I personally do not enjoy doing math, so we measured out the first rafter while holding it in place.  We got the perfect angle on the second try.  Not too bad.  This rafter became the "cookie cutter" by which we measured and cut all the others.

Measuring out the first rafter was a two person job.  Luckily, we have enough ladders.

As a side note, the weather is starting to become hat-weather...Nice.  My favorite time of the year!

A cluster of turkeys watches our progress from the background, while their constant gobbling urges Erica further up the ladder.

The first rafter is measured and set.  We ended up completing 1/2 of the rafters.  Today the plan is to finish up the roof and get ready to put on some covering and make a cupola from which the steam from the evaporation process will escape later in the week.

Did you know?  Rafters make great race-car ramps!

There are lots of new things here at the farm.  We're always keeping busy...

Work has begun on the Sugar Shack.  We decided that since we really enjoy the outside aspect of sugaring--especially on those sunny late-winter noons--that we'd build an open building.  The idea is to make a pavillion style building that is attached to the barn.  We'll have a roof to allow us to suger through the rain and snow, but we'll also be open to the air around us. 

I started this project by setting four posts into the ground just off the rear of the barn.  This is a pole building, meaning it will not have a foundation; rather, it will be secured to the ground by the corner posts.  I used some of the larger cedar logs that I had remaining from my fencing projects.

Yes, I'll have to move that pallet of bricks YET AGAIN...This will be the third time that I'll have picked those up, one by one...It is handy to have bricks around, though, so I can't complain too much.  They should be added to our official list of necessary farm items.

Next, I used some large threaded rod to secure the back posts to the barn for extra stability.  The roof of the shack will peak perpendicular to the barn and I'll also attach the ridge pole to the roof of the barn.

I had to buy an extra-long drill bit to make it all the way through the post and the barn.  I also used it to drill through the posts at the top where I mounted the beams with 12" carriage bolts.  Using bolts results in a much tighter and more secure connection.

Here is a picture of one of the beams that I constructed out of 2 x 6 dimensional lumber.  I made four beams in total.  Two 10 footers and two 12 footers.  The size of the building will be 12 x 9 when finished.  We'll have plenty of room to upgrade to a larger evaporator in a year or two. 

I have mounted the beams and am ready for the next step:  to install the ridge board and rafters.  I still need to figure out the best way to vent the chimney pipe and have to also construct a cupola which can open to allow the steam from the evaporator to escape.  Luckily, I have some great books on contruction and sugaring.

Stay tuned for more updates as the warm weather ends.  This project needs to be done before it snows!

With the end of the maple sugarin' season come and gone, it is time to start cleaning up the pails and buckets and taps.  There is lots of equipment to dismantle, carry in from the woods, and clean.

Yesterday, Erica spent 6 hours at least scrubbing, washing, and rinsing the buckets, pails, spouts, tubing, and holding tanks.  We'll have some photos of that later.  For now, here are some shots taken by Liev and Violet of Mom out in the woods gathering all the maple gear.

Not bad shots for a four and five year old!

Yuck!  Look at those critters in that bucket.  Always a sign that the spring is really here and the winter is gone.

It sure looks different out in the woods without the snow and ice.  I almost forgot what it looked like out there.  Actually, we moved in here last May, so we never experience the "naked" spring woods without all the growth of the late spring...

Check out the size of that oak tree! 

It's time for an update on the maple sugarin' here in Connecticut.  It's been a really busy week--with a brief trip to our favorite Phishing hole last weekend (more on this later)--but we're full scale on our maple syrup operation right now.  We've got a great system to allow us to boil sap during the week as well as on the weekends.  Erica fires up the evaporator during the day, and then it's my turn as the daylight slips away.

We will be running the evaporator almost non-stop Friday through Sunday this weekend.  We have a few hundred gallons of raw sap to boil with more to collect as it continues to flow.  Weather conditions are perfect!

So here is our set up in full operation.  We've been cutting the slab-wood and splitting it into small, almost kindling-sized pieces in order to get the fire raging inside of the evaporator.  While cutting and chopping, we take a break every 5-10 minutes to add more wood to the fire.  It's a fluid process that needs constant attention.  Leave the fire unattended for 5 minutes too long and it's almost out!  The slab-wood (mostly spruce) burns quickly.

Here is a pile of split spruce and some pine.  Imagine putting 2 x 4 scrap into a fire.  That's quite close to the effect we get with the split spruce.  At times it seems like a race as Erica feeds the fire and I split wood to replenish the pile.  My brother is coming tomorrow for a visit, so perhaps I can get him on the splitting task for a while.  This miight make for a good trade for a trunk load of firewood for his fireplace.



In addition to always adding wood to the fire and splitting some reserve wood, we must keep a constant eye on the level of sap inside of the evaporator.  We need to refill the 5 gallon reservoir of the "SD 3000" every 15 minutes when we're really boiling.  Here Erica is adding more sap.

It looks like I've momentarily caught up with the splitting!  That pile, though it looks impressive in this shot, will only last a few hours while we're at peak boiling.  Luckily, the softwoods split readily and I can use my axe instead of a maul.  Aside from 5 gallon buckets, the axe is the most important tool on our farm.

On Monday we got a surprise snowfall!  That didn't keep us from boiling, though.  You can begin to see how much heat is generated by this process by noting the large circle of melted snow (the ground in that area is actually DRY from the heat) around the evaporator.  The heat radiates for several feet.  (Hey look!  The tractor moved.)

While it's rather hard to make out, you can begin to see the color of the syrup as it forms in each of the chambers within the evaporator pan.  The raw sap enters into the channel on the bottom of the photo and moves along to the channel at the top of the photo as it becomes more concentrated.  We then draw off the "near-syrup" using the spigot and finish it off on our kitchen stove where we have much more control over the intensity of the heat.  Check out the coloring of the liquid in the top-most channel.  Almost syrup!

Here is a photo that my Uncle sent me after I mentioned one of my Grandfather's paintings in a previous post.  I am not sure when he painted this one, but the one below of him actually painting is from 1963.  I imagine that Grandpa painted the snowy maple sugaring scene after a winter's drive to VT with my Grandma and Uncle.  They were always driving around to points North, South, and West.  They oftentimes would go points East, but that would require using their boat (which they had).

Below is a photo of Grandpa working on what I believe to be a painting of a wharf in Rockport, MA.

We owe quite a bit here at our farm to my Grandfather, I suspect.  He always bought me REAL tools for Christmas, even when I was 4 and 5!  He would take me down into his cellar workshop and let me pound nails into scrap wood with my hammer, or let me reorganize his nail-holding coffee cans.  I use the same system here in my workshop and our kids have hammers and enjoy pounding nails into scrap wood too...

It's back into the woods to start gathering sap.  It's been still pretty cold at night--it got down to 10 here last night--but the sun is doing its work during the day and there is sap to be gathered.  Here's Liev making his way across our smaller brook.

As I've mentioned before, we like to put people to work here at the farm.  We like them to feel like they are at home, and we all know that there is no sitting around while at home.  Here we have my Dad tapping a tree.  Watch out for that poison ivy, Dad!  Everyone helps out.  Liev is carrying the bag of spiles and Violet is supervising and explaining to my Dad how to use the brace.

A closer shot of my Dad hard at work.

In addition to using the new 5 gallon pails, we also put out our older style buckets on some of the smaller trees.  Even though they have to be emptied more often, I think that they have a warm old-fashioned feel to them.  My grandfather was a painter and he had a fondness for painting maple sugaring scenes.  There is one large painting at my Uncle's house that offers a glimpse of the sugaring process complete with oxen pulling out the sap from the woods!  This photo of our buckets reminds me of my Grandpa and that painting. 

Finally, here is our "Maple Syrup Quality Control Tester" hard at work.  Note that she does not feel it necessary to wait for the sap to be actually processed into syrup!  Her verdict:  yummy!

For the past two days we have been trekking back and forth from the woods, hauling in planks to get across small brooks, hauling in tapping supplies, and hauling back our two children when they are finally ready to go inside.

We have a series of photos to share from the past two days.  The photo spread will take you from the arrival of our new sugaring equipment through to the tapping of the trees.  We will be adding more as we fire up the new evaporator for the first time.  I made a pretty cool device that will allow us to continually add sap to the boiling pan and I will add a photo of that later on.  It seems that the camera is on strike from being dropped in the snow...

Here is the new gear arriving from New Hampshire.

And here we have it all unloaded out behind the barn.  We have used a combination of aluminum buckets and milk jugs in our previous experience making maple syrup, but with our new evaporator we will need LOTS more sap to keep up.  So, as you may recall from a prior post, we are resorting to one of the most useful farm implements all around:  the 5 gallon pail!  We'll be adding 50 more (for a total of about 100) taps this year.  Also, the buckets will be nice as we can empty them once every other day instead of the twice daily routine with our smaller pails and jugs.  It is pretty far out to the woods, afterall.

You can see that we have the evaporator just about assembled in this shot. 

The next step was tapping the trees.  We still have a bit of snow on the ground out in the woods, and there are also lots of hidden "water holes" beneath these patches of show.  Look out!  There goes a boot!

My son has taken to using the brace and bit.  If we're not watchin him, he'll have every tree in the area tapped.  I wonder how oak syrup would taste? 

Here is Erica carrying the tubing.  We're using short pieces of tubing to connect the spouts (technically called "spiles") to the buckets.  In the future, we might run tubes directly from the trees out of the woods to large gathering drums.  We would start tapping the trees higher up, about 6 feet, and then gravity would help move the sap out of the woods as we slope down to the drums.  We're not sure that we want tubing running all through the woods, though.  I guess we will decide on this once we've determined the relative fun-to-labor ratio of hauling this stuff out by hand this year.

Here is a close up of a tapped tree.  On a good tapping day, you should be able to see the sap start dripping out.  If you look closely, you can see it starting to run out of the hole. 

Here is shot of several trees tapped alongside of our stream.  This summer the stream swelled significantly during a series of storms.  It was well up beyond the buckets in the photo.

And here we are after working hard at enjoying a hobby.  My son snapped this one whilst the camera was still with us.

Part two to follow.  Stay tuned...