Saturday, March 5, 2016

From Oil tank to Sap Evaporator, Saturday March 5th, Post #2

I decided that when the guys were going to spend a long and cold day outside cutting and welding and hitting themselves with hammers, I wanted to make something warm and filling. Boeuf  Bourguignon seemed like the perfect stewy soul food that was needed.

When I got home from my trip to the market to fetch ingredients for dinner, they had made quite a lot of progress.  I snapped a few photos before I needed to dash inside to sear the meat and mix the ingredients so they could rest for a few hours.

I was surprised to see that they had the smoke chamber and sides on. There's fireworks Bruce enjoying the fun. Anything fire is fun to FWB!























I am amazed that so much could get accomplished during one trip to the market. Oh the power of tools!









This puppy will end up being painted with high temperature paint in a nice solid black once we are all done.






















Gerome checking the control box for the welder. Or does one call that the welding unit? It must have a name. I thought it was pretty cool watching him feed the wire into it.


















Back to work cutting and welding and cutting and banging.
See those beams leaning diagonally? Those are the beams of the future sugar shack. 

 I am heading into the kitchen to cook. I am certain things will look much different when I get back.

INTERMISSION
cue cheesy music

I get back and they have turned FWB into a Minion! 






















Seriously he looks like a Minion!












I hope you see the comparison because it's really cracking me up.
Back to business. Welding is tough work, you can't see, and it smells bad!






















But still they keep on working with their eyes on the prize. 






















When it came time for some ear plugs, he insisted on giving me a kiss.  Um, hello!? Do you see the mess on there? He doesn't look very happy either.

Making progress! As the light dims I know we have a potentially long night ahead.  As I say that outloud, they tell me they should be all set by the time it is dark to begin the boil tomorrow morning. 

SP checks how frozen the sap is - only 4 or five inches on top. 





















Gerome's very busy work truck with stainless steel for the pan in the back. 






















 We ended up not being able to use it as it was too thin to be welded without burning. We had to buy a new pan but that will be in post 5 or 6 or more.























Things are really taking shape and I have high hopes. Here's the grate that will go inside on top of cinder blocks.
 






















and my last photo of Saturday night before the grand tool clean up before dinner!

From an oil tank to a sap evaporator... Post #1 , 1st Saturday morning

Two Saturdays ago we began with an old oil tank. 






















SP got it for free after searching in Uncle Henry's. It still had a little sludgy oil in it so he added some water and pulled the plug. We gave the left over oil to our mechanic for his waste oil burner. I love being sustainable!
Then the boys began cutting. 
 This is SP's cousin Gerome. I don't give anyone's name on my blog, but Gerome is fitting for this cousin. Thanks for all your help Gerome!























See there's not a lot of spark coming off that plasma cutter.  SP is making those grunty grring noises that I know mean frustration.























Gerome is putting on his happy face. 






















They came to discover that the plasma cutter needed more amperage to work correctly.  So.... they decided to fully mess with me and my plan to make  boeuf bourguignon, and.... 
pull out my stove... 
























and then rewire our breaker box. Oh me oh my... shit is getting real!






















Then they were playing with fire!






















SP marking out the lines, which they really couldn't see very well with the googles on.






















This is the ground for the plasma cutter, but just look at that magnetic disc! You know what we were calling it!























Fire fire fire!
Yes there's that voice in my head again.... 
https://youtu.be/RTkEN_wB2A4























Gerome taking some down time to be sure the welder is ready to go. 























See the smoke coming out the top? Yes there is a fire in there!























I love the face SP is making. Love that face!




































Getting closer..... 
and I got ready by swinging a wrench at it!
























The crow bar is out!

















It's all cut and ready to go! Here is the moment of truth aka how big of a fire is there?
























As I left for town to go to the market, SP went to work on cutting the top in the pieces he would need!

Next post to follow, but one observation I can make is that in the two weeks we have been working on this, all the snow has left. Sap is still running and we will boil for the third time this weekend, but that already looks so much different than the back yard I saw this morning!

Friday, March 4, 2016

Cone Heads


Fryeburg is tapped

We tapped our first tree at The Lee in Fryeburg!



























And back at home, we had some companions while gathering sap buckets.
Scout and Senor were on our heels every step of the way to each of the  85 buckets.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The new burner and soon to be evaporator

We are modeling our new sap burner/evaporator system on this wonderful blog's system.
https://raisingmilkandhoney.wordpress.com/tag/maple-syrup-evaporator/

We have an old oil tank just waiting to be cut!

Monday, February 29, 2016

75 gallons of sap

As of the Leap Year night, within a day of the first tap.

In less than 24 hours...

We have filled one and a half garbage cans with sap. That's well over 40 gallons of sap to boil! SP had to go fetch snow from outside a local ice arena and build an embankment to keep the ice in! I've never seen a winter in Maine with so little snow. What a difference from last year.

First syrup Sunday at the homestead ...

Shane put in roughly 85 taps today. Here is a sampling of a few
I love hearing the ping ping ping of sap collecting in the buckets.
With the taps we will put in in Fryeburg, we should be boiling 100 taps worth this coming weekend!



And so it begins... Syrup season is upon us!

This was actually a blended session - prep work at home and a failed start in Fryeburg.

You need to make sure you have the right drill bits :)





Saturday, February 27, 2016

Monday, February 15, 2016

Sustainable Valentine?

I love you Shane. Thanks, I love you, and this meant so much! I'm keeping them on my bedside. 

Winter in Maine...


Tuesday, February 2, 2016

I'm back in school and bad at blogging!

I just wanted to post and let you know I am really busy working and being back in school right now, so please bear with me.... I will be back!