"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

Rookie82 said:
Tapped our maple trees Saturday, got everything in the Sugarhouse ready to go yesterday. Just did a spot check and most of the buckets are overflowing with maple sap. I'll be busy this afternoon/evening!
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Sounds like you have already been busy.
Please excuse my ignorance.
Do you ever have to worry about animals getting into your harvest buckets before you collect them?
Cheers
Mitch
 
mitch13 said:
Sounds like you have already been busy.
Please excuse my ignorance.
Do you ever have to worry about animals getting into your harvest buckets before you collect them?
Cheers
Mitch
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My dad had a full hip replacement in January, so our team-captain is on the sidelines this season. He's graciously passed the reigns to me (although he still likes to point out every decision I make that isn't what he would have done). So this year we have 274 taps, instead of our usual 600+. It was just too much work for me to handle alone.

The buckets have a pitched lid on top, meant to keep out the rain. That deters bigger animals like squirrels or porcupines from messing around. We have had every so often a mouse fall in and drown, and we dump the sap out when that happens. Sometimes ants or moths get in, but we have a pre-filter to get a lot of the gunk out before boiling, and then a food-grade filter for putting the hot syrup through to remove all impurities, so nothing bad gets through. But never really had any bear or deer mess with them.

Actually other humans are the biggest nuisance. We had someone go through the woods with a handgun once, shooting holes in all the buckets. Another time we had a guy leave a note that said "Guess which bucket I peed in". We couldn't take the chance that he was joking or not, and so had to dump out about 100 buckets of sap in that section of woods. We've had buckets stolen more than once.
 
Rookie82 said:
My dad had a full hip replacement in January, so our team-captain is on the sidelines this season. He's graciously passed the reigns to me (although he still likes to point out every decision I make that isn't what he would have done). So this year we have 274 taps, instead of our usual 600+. It was just too much work for me to handle alone.

The buckets have a pitched lid on top, meant to keep out the rain. That deters bigger animals like squirrels or porcupines from messing around. We have had every so often a mouse fall in and drown, and we dump the sap out when that happens. Sometimes ants or moths get in, but we have a pre-filter to get a lot of the gunk out before boiling, and then a food-grade filter for putting the hot syrup through to remove all impurities, so nothing bad gets through. But never really had any bear or deer mess with them.

Actually other humans are the biggest nuisance. We had someone go through the woods with a handgun once, shooting holes in all the buckets. Another time we had a guy leave a note that said "Guess which bucket I peed in". We couldn't take the chance that he was joking or not, and so had to dump out about 100 buckets of sap in that section of woods. We've had buckets stolen more than once.
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Interesting in deed, dad's will always tell you what to do😀
It's sad but not surprising people are the biggest pest.
The reason I asked, is you can see ant's head for sap on gumtrees here.
www.abc.net.au

Gum Trees - Gardening Australia

Clarence Slockee discusses one of Australia's most iconic trees - the gum
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au

Hope you have a great haul.
 
Happy Pi day folks!
Ybp5x4p.jpg
 
I almost forgot Pi Day until I saw Jeff's Amir Fleschwund Amir Fleschwund post in the Totin' Today thread yesterday! :eek:

J Just Tom. 's calculator display reminded me of techniques for memorizing the first n digits of a decimal representation of Pi. Some are included in this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piphilology

r8shell r8shell 's post beat me to the punch on a Pi Day pie! :thumbsup::cool::thumbsup:
My wife baked this one this afternoon, and I added a knife to get a photo appropriate for Pi Day AND for Black Friday.
(Full disclosure: neither my wife nor I ever bake a pie "from scratch" anymore. This one, like most of our pies for the past 10 years at least, is a Marie Calendar frozen razzleberry pie that we simply transfer from grocery store to freezer to oven to mouth. My wife DID add the flower to the top crust! I'll have a piece before bed tonight! :thumbsup:🤓😋)
6TCIqCq.jpeg


- GT
 
meako said:
Sadly no...last seen on the dresser...so its in the house...but where?I'm starting to look in shoes....very unhappy.
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Pretend you resigned with the loss and don't feel sad anymore, that you even ordered another one, and it will show up no doubt. Seriously, lost things tend to appear whenever you stop looking for them.
 
meako said:
Well they are a traditional animal...in yerms of being hunted almost to extinction for hats...


Sadly no...last seen on the dresser...so its in the house...but where?I'm starting to look in shoes....very unhappy.
Cheers.
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hopefully just swept some where close 🤞
 
meako said:
Well they are a traditional animal...in yerms of being hunted almost to extinction for hats...


Sadly no...last seen on the dresser...so its in the house...but where?I'm starting to look in shoes....very unhappy.
Cheers.
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Extinction where? :(

I’ve got 5 of them in my one pond…little jerks. Hahahaha! Chewing all my good hardwood trees down. 😂

When we are out tootin’ around in the canoe, they like to get close and warn us with their tail slap…

Very interesting and productive little guys. I like watching them.
 
Sharp & Fiery said:
Extinction where? :(

I’ve got 5 of them in my one pond…little jerks. Hahahaha! Chewing all my good hardwood trees down. 😂

When we are out tootin’ around in the canoe, they like to get close and warn us with their tail slap…

Very interesting and productive little guys. I like watching them.
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Yeah, beavers are pretty cool. Dam good engineers 😇
They're also destructive, clearing trees you don't want cleared and flooding things you don't want flooded. I had to build a beaver fence around the primary pipe spillway on one project because they kept damning it up 🦫
On another project a colleague borrowed a live trap from the Conservation Department, hoping to relocate them. Instead of catching the beavers, they were like, "Structural steel!" and promptly incorporated the trap into their dam. I think it took him 3 or 4 hours to dig it out 🤣
 
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