[Up North Louie]

We haven’t tapped yet.

Here in Northern Wisconsin, we’re having something that approximates what used to be considered a “normal” winter, and I, for one, am damned glad of it.

This is totally unscientific, and I expect to get flamed for it, but I think that the trees need a good rest in the winter, 3 or 4 months at or below freezing and enough snow cover to hold the frost at about 3 feet. The last 3 years, these criteria have not been met– either warmer than usual for most of the time, or way cold with no snow and frost 6 feet down, and then it shoots to 50 degrees in a week. The runs have been lame. Last year was absolutely pathetic; we tap about 80 “ideal” trees, and we ended up with maybe 5 gallons of end product. We usually get far more than that.

This year has all the benchmarks of a good season, and I can’t wait.

That said, we only tap about 5 or 10% of the trees we can. This year, we are starting to keep records of which trees are producing, with an eye to retirement for some, and bringing new trees into the line, and expanding by a net gain of 25 or so trees per year over the next 4 or 5 years.

It one of our goals to turn it into a small, boutique-style revenue stream. I think we can do that pretty much locally.

Don

[Up North Louie]

Way cool. I will check her out. I need two pair of single lines to split my boys for the Great Slaying of the Cedar Posts. Call me a loser, but I find the idea of nylon lines revolting.

Thanks,

Don

[Up North Louie]

For what it’s worth, I had a very similar situation with Tony, the bigger of my two Belgians. I got a bit called a Liverpool from a guy who works with an Amish community about an hour and a half south of me. It’s not unlike a curb bit, but instead of a pronounced “u” shape, it’s just an arc, gentle, but more authoritative than a snaffle. He takes it well, and it works.

Don

[Up North Louie]

I figured I had better get these photos taken and up before the weather tanks on me later in the day.

That’s a standard 48 inch pallet. The spikes on the rear of the arms move in and out.

front

side

back

I’m wondering if I can’t just flip the thing over to hook to my evener and pole, using the bracket that accepts the top link. I’ll give it a try soon and let you know how it goes.

Don

[Up North Louie]

Hi, Brad.

I don’t use oxen, but I do use Belgians to move firewood and other chores.

Next summer we hope to put in a little more of a road to make them useful in our syruping operation; for this year, we’ll still be using buckets and Shank’s pony.

Nice to see another Cheesehead on the board.

Don

[Up North Louie]

I’ll get a few in the next day or so. Pretty dark for that just now.

It’s pretty straightforward, though. 2″ square tube stock welded at right angles to form a squared-off “U” shape. Two legs with holes drilled through at the tips, and in the middle of the cross piece are little dog legs the width of a CAT 1 hitch and center to those a leg to accept the top link. The holes at the end of the legs accept pins that drive into the core of the bale. The hardest part is to “read” the bale to see which way it wants to unroll.

I could probably modify this one to hook to an evener in about 15 minutes. In fact, all I would need is a hole. I have a pole and eveners that detach from a hay wagon so you could even go down hill with it. I will give that a try 🙂

I’ve never pulled anything behind a yoked team, so I wouldn’t know what that would require.

d

[Up North Louie]

We built a kind of tumblebug that hooks to the 3-point and will even unroll them for you. No reason it couldn’t be pulled with a team. Would you like a couple pictures?

Don

[Up North Louie]

Sure sounds like a bobsled to me. While I’ve never seen the front runners used independently, ours has a level deck from about 2 feet behind the eveners all the way to the back end. It has stake pockets; you can put stake sides on it, and move a fairly large amount of pole wood, up to about 10 feet. You are limited by what you can lift.

For skidding big logs, I fashioned a sort of dray out of a large elm crotch. I notched the tops of the legs to accept two 3×6 inch rough-sawn planks, perpendicular, more or less, to the legs, which are carriage-bolted from the bottom. You can long-chain the log up on to the back of the dray, chain it down and it makes it a lot easier on the boys to move it a long way in poor terrain. Grampa would have called this unit a stone boat, since that’s what you moved on it in the spring after we plowed. Picking rock on to that thing was universally hated. Put ’em on, pull ’em off, pile ’em up, repeat.

For picking rock, I now use a front end loader. There are only so many hours in the day, and my back isn’t as good as it used to be. I feel pretty good about that choice.

Don

[Up North Louie]

Well, hello, there 🙂

Don

[Up North Louie]

Small wonder– your drill is at least 80 years old 🙂 Grease it.

My neighbor used one of those McCormick drills until he died. They are beautiful pieces. And they work well. He didn’t replace it because he didn’t need to.

Don

[Up North Louie]

I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon, but isn’t using wood from dunnage in overseas trans-shipment kinda like how we got things like Emerald Ash Borer ? I think I would want to be pretty cautious about hauling that kind of thing on to my place.

Don

[Author]

Posts