As many of you have noticed, I’ve added a few of each size container in both Amber and Dark syrup into the inventory in the storefront. In most cases I have more at the sugarhouse and if that runs out, I put 5 gal of each Amber and Dark into 5 gal jugs, all filtered and ready to pack. This is the first time I’ve done that, in the past I’ve kept my extra syrup in either 26.5 gal or 40 gal SS barrels. That requires me to pump the entire barrel into the 2×6′ finisher (propane fired), heat it to 190-210F, filter it again through my filter press and then into the bottler where the post filtering temperature is brough back up to 185F for filling retail containers. That takes a second day before I can have more syrup ready to ship, and if I still have the other grade syrup or bourbon barrel aged syrup in the finisher (sometimes other things come up and I might not finish processing the contents of the finisher in that case for as many as 7-10 days, thus delaying having syrup ready to ship for a new order . Having 5 gal in a jug, I can then just clean the bottler, put 5 gal in the bottler, turn on the heater for the bottler, and even if the 5 gal of syrup was in the 30’s it is ready in 120-135 minutes to bottle at 185 F This approach should help get faster turn arounds on out of stock issues, I also did it for my bourbon barrel aged syrup back a month or 2 ago. For those wondering why I don’t just pack that 5 gal as I’m packing the rest, and store them, it’s because I don’t know what sizes will sell the fastest and thus need restocking. I always sell and pack far more half gallons than any other size, it’s mainly the quarts, pints and half pints that vary as the seasons progress, they are most often what I need to pack on short notice, but sometimes it’s the half gallon size too (because I have several long time customers who order multiple half gallons). The only exception is in the bourbon barrel aged syrup, they only get bottled into 100ml, 200ml and 375 ml ( or 3.38 fl oz, 6.76 fl oz or 12.7 fl o) sizes.
Yesterday I finally had a proper wind to safely cut down the 15″ diameter hemlock which was leaning towards my workshop. Had I not cut it, and it fell the way it was leaning it would have hit the front double doors on the workshop, requiring extensive repairs. As it was I only had a space of 17 feet between the shop and my currently dissabled excavator. As I cut the felling notch I favored slightly towards the excavator. When the tree landed some of the smaller branched hit the excavator but there was no damage. It’s raining all day today, After Easter I’ll limb the tree and cut the larger sections to length to saw into lumber, the limbs and smaller sections of the trunk will be put into a brush pile for critters to live in, rabbits especially like those piles, the coyotes can’t get to them. While we don’t have a large pop[ulation of coyotes we do have some, I occasionally see them hunting for mice or rabbits. As far as I’ve noticed that’s the last tree leaning towards my sugarhouse or shop. Since maple season I haven’t taken time yet to check the rest of the woods, but very likely there are more. Around the sugarhouse and shop this has been the worst year for trees blowing down, Besides the large sugar maple that leaned towards a corner of the sugarhouse and the hemlock I just took down, I had one mostly live beech tree break off about 6′ above the ground and block on of the roadways by the sugarhouse, 3 hemlocks that fell, uprooted close to but fell away from the sugarhouse and one dead ash tree, uprooted also falling away from the sugarhouse. Half of those will make good firewood, the large sugar maple, the beech and the dead ash, the hemlocks were all to small to waste time on to make into lumber except the one I cut yesterday.
Earlier this week, as I was waiting for the bottler to get up to temperature, I marked the trunk of the sugar maple (29″ diameter at the butt end, down to 16″ at the first crotch) into 14″ lengths (thay seem to work best in our family room woodstove, larger ones do fit side to side, but we like to have two front to back and the rest side to side. If all are at 14″ every piece can face which ever direction we want the next one to face as we feed the fire. That will be cut and split in the next few weeks. I’m going to ask if my brother will come over and split the blocks into 4 pcs, to make it easier to split. a very large block of sugar maple is by far too heavy for this 78 yr old to lift and it fills the large tray on the splitter too much too requiring it to be dropped on the ground and be lifted again. My brother has a big skid steer and a hydraulic 2 way splitter (it splits in both directions so the wedge doesn’t need to retract before the next split can be done, and in use the wedge faces down, so a block laying on the ground can be split, From in the cab, he can pick up a large block, split it once, as it lands on the ground he can repeat until it reduced to a size I cal lift, then I’ll split it into the smaller sizes we like for our family room woodstove. Before the first branch there will be 23 blocks 14″ long, then 3 branches come off and the diameters of then are small enough for me to lift. I didn’t mark to cut the first crotch, when that’s cut to 14″ I’ll split it with a chainsaw, then finish it with the splitter. Also, I cut the stump high, much higher than usual. I typically try to leave a stump no taller that about 6″ max, on this one I cut it at about 48″ high. I’ll then cut 3 @ 14″ out thus leaving a 6″ stump. I did that to help get the tree to land farther from the stump and it did, it’s about 30″ from the stump, which put it where it isn’t resting on a large root hump.