[mitchmaine]

i used to own and operate a clark ranger. you could hook on to the back of a woodlot and tow it up to the front. amazing power. too much to put in the hands of a man. maine only makes two dollars. one from the woods, and one from the tourists. everything else is there to shore up those two. in the next ten years, we will probably chip the whole of the state off for $17 per ton. we are giving away all our wood and keeping none of the money. i can feel a lot of old loggers rolling in their graves. anyway, i looked at that farmi winch and it didn,t impress me much. i have changed my mind. its ok. a scoot is pretty light and fairly simple tool. a twitch chain is lighter. keep it simple, right? i agree.

[mitchmaine]

keep digging neal. i am trying the thomaston historical folks, because the prison was there, and they made that type harness. but we may never know. and thats ok too, cause its a wonderful bit of harness all by itself. i went to a sleigh rally here a month ago. over a dozen teams carting people all over (without snow of course), and i did a silent survey, and not one yankee harness in the lot. mostly belly backer and a couple side backer. in maine. go figure.
elmin is a great resourse for about anything. you must know g.w. ? and scott king just moved up that way. he and i used to cut timberframes together.

[mitchmaine]

scott,
that makes sense. i think you just closed the loop. its also a good tool for stretching a chain, when you need an extra linc, you can use it as a lever and pry against the log with a link in the bight to pull up chaine you might not get with your hand. if that makes any sense.
mitch

[mitchmaine]

all tapped out last weekend. winter has returned. lots of snow predicted, but we will wait and see. nothing running. two thirds of our buckets are almost full of frozen sap. so we will have something to boil someday. in the meantime, fattening up my pulp pile with some more fir.

[mitchmaine]

on the water, a fid is a wooden pin tapered to a fine point. used to open a strand of laid rope or line for splicing. a marlin spike is the same tool made from steel, and used to lay cable or wire rope. don’t know if there isa connection.

[mitchmaine]

hi ed, that was an important talk that you had with your visitors from concord. when you live with animals for a while they truly become part of your life doing chores and so on, and i understand that we can get so used to them being there. but it totally amazes me when, in this day and age of television and computers and youtube and so on, that people have no concept of working horses, or maple production, or anything earth connected for that matter. good going. it takes patience.
we are almost tapped out. another 100 tomorrow and we can start boiling. that snow the other night left us with 5″ of wet spring snow. good for moving sap tho’. the downside is that the sap we have collected is frozen in the buckets and we need some real warm days to loosen that up. i’ll see if i can get a photo of the horses in the sugarbush for you. carring a camera out there might be a challenge. best wishes, mitch

[mitchmaine]

Evan,

This is our sap sled, the stock tank is full of buckets to hang. We hung 60 last weekend that are about half full. We hung 220 today and sap was running well. Will throw some more up tomorrow. Shooting for 4-500 depending on our spirit. We have a galvanized collecting tank , three barrel, to gather with that sets on the same sled, and we use a four wheel cart on bare ground.. Hey to bill, and good sugaring.
Ed, nice rig there. 2×8? Hard to quess. Nothing to guage the size by. Sweet! Snow is about 5” deep in the woods and all but gone out here. I can tap real close to the ground in wood that is fairly tap free. And I’m tapping a few more on the north side this year with this warm weather. Hope it pays off. Good luck to you and mark and michael and the rest of the sugarmakers. mitch

[mitchmaine]

thanks george, i remember now. i misunderstood, but it makes sense now, thanks for clearing that up. mitch

[mitchmaine]

@Michael Low 32642 wrote:

That would have been Francis Foster. Lived in Walden, and was one of the first to import Brabants into the country. That’s the same Foster who owned the mill shown in the Ben Thresher video. He supported a family, 12 kids plus 10 foster kids, on horse logging and eventually his sawmill. Quite a charactor who unfortunately died just a few years ago.
Michael Low

i think ben thresher sold his mill to the rockefellers who wanted to move it to the billings museum, but the locals put up such a fuss, rockefeller sold it back to ben and ben sold it to a local named hiram hill or something like that who set up the nonprofit and so on. is this true? in that case, francis foster would have had to have it first and sell it to thresher. can you fill me in on the particulars? lots of fosters in maine, including my mom.

[mitchmaine]

hey dave, nice three hitch, by the way. haven’t spoke with nick in a while, but he is back in maine. they sold the mules and wagons out in oregon. spent a few days with the buyer at his place. nick made it to the pendleton roundup on foot. had a time. drove back slow, stopping at every wagon and wheel shop he could find on theway, which wasn’t as direct route. now he is giving talks around, like one the other day at the transportation museum up in owls head. i haven’t made any of his talks but get bits and peices here and there. rinker is writing the book. kinda quiet up here this time of year, but he will have someting going on come spring. thanks for asking. mitch

[mitchmaine]

sorry to hear that john. our thoughts are with you. mitch

[mitchmaine]

njfarmer, i’m guessing that means new jersey. hard to imagine your season being over but keep an eye on the holes you bored in your mystery trees. they may weep a little yet. we are two or three weeks early here and it alreday looks like the end. no moths or snow fleas. i hung a few pails to see what was happening and got an inch of sap in two days. looks like warm nights next, then some proper weather but very hard to predict how long our season will last. cleaned up the sugarhouse and boiled some water in the pans, and will probably start tapping tomorrow. my heart isn’t in it. the weather is toooooooooooooooweird.

[mitchmaine]

@njfarmer 32660 wrote:

So I have a question for all you experienced tappers. I tapped two maple trees(at least what Im pretty sure are maple) this afternoon. No sap came out though. I was wondering am I too late for the sap flow or was it too warm. I drilled a 1/2 hole at an upward angle about 2 inches deep. I used a standard plastic 1/2 inch hose adapter. One that you would use to fix a hole or split inline. But no sap. I probably tapped at about 4pm. Not ideal but thats when I got back from tractor supply after having the idea I want to attempt to make some maple syrup. Any thoughts? The only thing I can think of is maybe it isnt a maple LOL

is it freezing up at night where you are? it has to do that to run sap.

[mitchmaine]

George,
I have no experience with dogs like these and only used tongs a few times, but I have worn out several pulp hooks and one thing I know is frozen hardwood will not take a point. I think it must be the sap, which is nothing more than frozen water, and you can drive a point in but the wood keeps the shape of the point and your point falls out. Pitch in softwood doesn’t freeze the same way and softwood closes around the point of your hook and holds and of course in summer all is forgiven and everything works.
Frozen beech will hardly hold a chain sometimes and we have cut a second notch in the butt to hold a chocker from slipping off before. Limbing a beech is a miserable job too, and should be considered punishment in some cultures. But it sure does burn fine. My dad always cut and split our firewood right at the stump. Went in in the late summer with a box cart and brought out the wood.
Have you tried your dogs in softwood? We used to draw out the points of our wood hooks and blunt them on the anvil. If they were sharp they wouldn’t hold. The tip was just blunted with a small bead that helped hold the wood. Maybe your dogs are too sharp? Good luck with them. mitch

[mitchmaine]

absolutely tim,
i love this website! documented by the amazing number of times i’ve chirped in(823). too many times maybe, but just this morning on facebook, erika shared a european horse progress days, and i have never seen anyone hook a draft with a breast harness or a steer with a collar but they do over there and i wouldn’t have known it without her and face book so there ya go. thanks for being there and sharing. mitch

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