The Adventures of Pearl !!! Host list post's #22 and #23

Rookie82 said:
Great photos and trips with Pearl. You certainly took her out on the town Shawn. :thumbsup:

A little bird says she'll be coming to stay with me next. Just in time, my father and I tapped 600 maple trees this past weekend, and the sugarhouse will be smelling of maple syrup for the next month or so. I'll teach Pearl a thing or 2 about hard work!
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Good thing, too! I think she might have put on a few grams from the revelry!
 
The mail lady will be picking up Pearl tomorrow morning to start her trek north! I tried to get to the PO today, but our daughter's (twice rescheduled) operation is tomorrow and hectic it's been in my neck of the woods.
 
Just a quick update, Pearl came to visit today. I'll have her tag along with me for a few days and get some photos, and share it with you all soon.
 
Well, I took Pearl for a little drive this morning. We went to visit her folks back in her hometown of Bradford, PA.


From there, we went to visit her cousins in Titusville, PA. First to the GEC plant, and then to the Queen Cutlery plant.



Then, after lunch, I took her for a walk in the woods to check on our maple sap pails. The weather is too warm right now, so there isn't anything maple syrup related we can do today. But she got some nice photos.



After that, we went back to the SugarHouse to check on the tractor.

Of course she wanted to drive.


So right now the weather forecast is showing warmer days all week. We're hoping to get some cold nights sometime to help get the maple sap flowing, and then I'll show some shots from inside the SugarHouse where we boil the sap in the evaporator. This past Tues/Wed, the trees were dripping like crazy, and we collected 1300 gallons of sap from 630 buckets. All carried by hand and dumped into our hauling tank, and brought to the evaporator to boil down. It took approximately 12 hours total of boiling time over 2 evenings to get through all the sap, and we got a little over 20 gallons of maple syrup from it.

I am a 5th generation maple syrup maker here on our family property. Some of the trees we tap were planted by my great-great-grandfather. Right now myself with wife and daughter, my sister with her husband and daughter, and my dad are all the crew that handles all the work. We burn through approximately 20 cords of wood in 3 weeks time when the sap is really flowing. Here is a video of us last spring driving into the woods to collect sap (I'm the one driving the tractor.)

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Thanks for the update Rookie82 Rookie82 ! It's great to see that Pearl got a chance to visit the folks back home, including the cousins. I'm sure she rooting for the Queen side of the family.
Interesting inside view of your vocation sir. How wonderful to be the fifth generation of maple syrup makers. Thanks for showing Pearl around! She sure looked like she was enjoying herself, especially when driving the tractor.
 
Oooo boy, the weather is just right and the maple sap is flowing. It's going to be a busy and exhausting afternoon/evening/night. The fires will be burning and the steam will be billowing and Pearl will be with me the whole time. I hope to show some new photos tomorrow.
 
Awesome. Gonna be cool to see Pearl helping out with the syrup making process. Are you planning on sending a quart of that syrup along with Pearl when she travels to the next host?
 
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Wurrwulf said:
Got a chance to run out to the old stomping grounds since I'm off of work for Mardi Gras. I didn't want to flood too many pictures into this thread of the same location, but I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to make it downtown before I feel the need to send the knife to the next host.

I grew up 2.5 miles away from the exact spot the pictures were taken, in a little town named Bayou Gauche. Some of y'all may recognize this first place, but I believe the interior would probably ring more bells. Fans of the HBO series True Detective saw a lot of this little bar in the first season. Welcome to Doumain's Domain aka Fisherman's Wharf:

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On the dock across the street:
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Old shrimping boats, house boats, and mud boats line the shore:
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Wouldn't be a picture in SE La without some Spanish Moss on an Oak tree, right?
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It's a quiet little part of the world; a place where hours can pass in minutes while you cast a line.
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Thanks for letting me take Pearl on a little trip home. I'm really hoping to get her to New Orleans, but if I can't make it by this weekend, I feel it's best to send the old girl on to her next destination. Here's a link to a little article written on Fisherman's Wharf/Bayou Gauche from shortly after True Detective came out: https://punchdrink.com/articles/the-true-bar-behind-true-detective/
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Really enjoyed your posts Shawn .

Harry
 
Sorry guys, got really busy the last few days and didn't have time to post until now.
Burnt Stag said:
Awesome. Gonna be cool to see Pearl helping out with the syrup making process. Are you planning on sending a quart of that syrup along with Pearl when she travels to the next host?
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If we have any syrup filtered and jugged by then, I can send a little syrup along. We usually are going non-stop to gather and boil, and we focus on filtering and canning after the mad rush of sap has dried up.

FOG2 said:
1300 gallons to get 20 gallons..holy bejeesus!
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Yes, it is a lot of work for a small reward. The maple sap starts out weak, at roughly 80:1. As the season moves further along, the sugar content in the sap keeps increasing, and you can get down to 40:1. But once the buds come out on the trees, the type of sugar the tree produces changes, and the sap becomes very bitter and unusable. Add to that the unpredictable weather, and the fact that the holes in the trees heal shut in about 2-3 weeks. It's a fine line to figuring out the best scenario to get:
A.) The most sap possible.
B.) the highest sugar sap possible.
C.) the best weather of below freezing nights, and above 40 degree F days.
D.) time it right so that the trees don't heal shut before the best weather occurs
E. time it right so that the trees don't grow buds out and ruin the sap
 
Here is a Pearl update.

We gathered 350 gallon of sap on Tuesday, and another 300 gallon yesterday (after I get out of my normal job at 5:00, and before it is too dark to see anything in the woods.) Then we lit the fires at 6:30 yesterday and boiled until just past midnight.
Here is a view of some of the sugarhouse and the wood pile.


Can you find Pearl hiding in the wood?

Here are a few views of the evaporator cooking, and all the steam coming off.





Here are a few shots of loading the fire. It's kind of like running an old fashioned steam locomotive. You gotta throw wood in every 4-5 minutes to keep the fire roaring non-stop for 6+ hours. We spend 11 months getting all our wood ready and dried, and then burn it all up in 3 weeks.


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Rookie82 said:
Well, I took Pearl for a little drive this morning. We went to visit her folks back in her hometown of Bradford, PA.
View attachment 856358

From there, we went to visit her cousins in Titusville, PA. First to the GEC plant, and then to the Queen Cutlery plant.
View attachment 856359
View attachment 856361

Then, after lunch, I took her for a walk in the woods to check on our maple sap pails. The weather is too warm right now, so there isn't anything maple syrup related we can do today. But she got some nice photos.
View attachment 856367
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After that, we went back to the SugarHouse to check on the tractor.
View attachment 856372
Of course she wanted to drive.
View attachment 856373

So right now the weather forecast is showing warmer days all week. We're hoping to get some cold nights sometime to help get the maple sap flowing, and then I'll show some shots from inside the SugarHouse where we boil the sap in the evaporator. This past Tues/Wed, the trees were dripping like crazy, and we collected 1300 gallons of sap from 630 buckets. All carried by hand and dumped into our hauling tank, and brought to the evaporator to boil down. It took approximately 12 hours total of boiling time over 2 evenings to get through all the sap, and we got a little over 20 gallons of maple syrup from it.

I am a 5th generation maple syrup maker here on our family property. Some of the trees we tap were planted by my great-great-grandfather. Right now myself with wife and daughter, my sister with her husband and daughter, and my dad are all the crew that handles all the work. We burn through approximately 20 cords of wood in 3 weeks time when the sap is really flowing. Here is a video of us last spring driving into the woods to collect sap (I'm the one driving the tractor.)
Click to expand...

Great photos, Rookie82 Rookie82 , thanks for sharing. The syrup business certainly seems like a lot of hard work, but as someone who appreciates real maple syrup on my pancakes, let me just say thank you for putting in the effort! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
 
I don't have any ready yet from this year. But here is a view of Pearl with a 2017 jug out of our refrigerator. My family goes through six 1/2 gallon jugs in a year. We use it as a sugar substitute in all our baking and cooking, and on hams and baked beans, pies, cookies, ice cream, etc. yumm yumm

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So our large evaporator is 4 foot wide and 12 foot long. Our smaller one is 3 1/2 foot wide and 10 foot long. We haven't used the smaller one in the last few years. When we have enough sap and enough help, we used to run both at the same time, and that really got exciting. The large one can boil 100-130 gallons per hour, and the smaller one can boil 50-75 gallons per hour of sap, depending on the weather conditions. Cold clear sky nights with low pressure will make the steam rise off faster and the sap boil quicker. Overcast cloudy days with rain or fog make the evaporators struggle to boil quickly, and we burn through more wood than normally.

We are friends with an Amish family that own a sawmill, and they trade us firewood for maple syrup, so that works out well for everyone. The smaller evaporator was my Grandfather's that he bought used back in the 1950's, and the larger one my Dad bought used in the 1980's. New evaporators of this size today cost well over $20,000, and then you need to add accessories like a stainless stack, steam bonnet and steam stacks, cast iron coal grates, etc. It is not unheard of for newcomers who want to go big time to spend $100,000 their first year to get all their stuff setup and build a building to put it all in. Luckily, ours is a slow progression of hand-me-down equipment for 5 generations. Each generation adds a few new things to the mix, and replaces old and worn out items. We are by no means state-of-the-art with our equipment, but we don't do this to make a living. It is a hobby that sometimes puts us in the red for the year, and sometimes we may make a few bucks.

We tap 600-650 taps each year, all with buckets. All collected by hand and dumped into a hauling tank on a hay wagon, pulled by a tractor. There are quite a few people in my area who are hobbyists, who just have 20-50 taps and do it to make syrup for their family. There are also a lot of large scale operations, some with over 25,000 taps and dual evaporators that are 6 foot wide and 20 foot long. They collect their sap with tubing run to each tree, and vacuum pumps to gather the sap all into large storage tanks, and then haul the sap with tri-axle milktrucks. They use reverse osmosis machines to concentrate the sugar in the sap before boiling, and then hold their syrup in 50 gallon stainless drums, which are then sold to Canada.
 
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Rookie, Thank you for the very interesting information!
You are a HARD working man and I hope you are well rewarded in life for it.
If I weren't Diabetic I would surely buy some of your product!
 
Rookie82 Rookie82 I was completely enthralled by your post! What a wonderful hobby/business your family runs! That is a massive amount of wood, and I love the picture of Pearl "hiding" in it. I'm sure doing it "the old fashioned" way adds not only pride in your heart but a special something to your syrup! I'll echo the sentiment that y'all are a hard working bunch, and your hard work is definitely appreciated! Out of curiosity, how many acres of land do those 600-650 taps take up? I'd imagine you're legging it out over a fair distance, even with a tractor!

Thanks for the posts. Pearl is absolutely getting the experience of a lifetime with you!
 
Wurrwulf said:
Rookie82 Rookie82 I was completely enthralled by your post! What a wonderful hobby/business your family runs! That is a massive amount of wood, and I love the picture of Pearl "hiding" in it. I'm sure doing it "the old fashioned" way adds not only pride in your heart but a special something to your syrup! I'll echo the sentiment that y'all are a hard working bunch, and your hard work is definitely appreciated! Out of curiosity, how many acres of land do those 600-650 taps take up? I'd imagine you're legging it out over a fair distance, even with a tractor!

Thanks for the posts. Pearl is absolutely getting the experience of a lifetime with you!
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Our circumstance is a unique one. My grandfather bought a farm in the 1940's to raise a few hundred hogs, and a few beef cows. The farm was approximately 150 acres. His cousin owned the next farm over, 300+ acres, for a dairy farm. The next farm over from that was an uncles, again over 300 acres. Plus there were a few other relatives with smaller sized farms all around the area. In the 1960's, the US Gov came in and through eminent domain, decided it was a good place to build a dam, flood the whole valley to make a lake to promote tourism, and cut my grandfather's farm down from 150 acres to 20. Similar situation happened to everyone elses farms also.

But, my grandfather managed to get a family lifetime contract with the US Gov that says we have rights and access to tap the maple trees on any unflooded land that used to be my grandfather's farm. So we have approximately 300 taps on that ground, another 150 on our actual property, and the rest are in the neighbors front yards along the road that my dad lives on.

Most of our taps are within 50 yards of the tractor trail. Although my dad is always scouring the woods to find new trees, I have to constantly remind him that nobody enjoys hauling 2 full 5 gallon buckets of sap 100+ yards back to the tractor. And then to repeat and do that 100+ times a day. He's 63, I figured he would be slowing down by now, but he has more strength and energy than I ever do.
 
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