New Tech Down At The Sugarbush

News from the Sugarbush

This was a week of trying new things on two different fronts. We finally got around to unpacking our new RO Bucket, which is a reverse osmosis system tailored to the needs of small maple tapping operations. It has a built-in pump and three RO membranes, which make it capable of processing about 24 gallons of sap per hour. The pump sucks in sap through the yellow tube and pushes it against the membranes. The pure water that passes through the membranes goes out the blue tube into one bucket, and a mix of water, sugar, and the other bits and bobs that make up maple sap go out the red tube to another bucket.

Using this method, we're able to get about half the water out of the sap without using any firewood. The grumpy old timer in me feels like this is cheating, and it does mean less biochar produced per jar of syrup, but it should enable us to double the amount of syrup we can make without having to upgrade our boiling setup at all.

Which is good, because our other experiment did not go as well. We've been talking for a couple of years about putting two barrels in series, so that we could get some extra use out of the heat before it went up the chimney. This was our first attempt at that, and it didn't quite work. We were hooking this year's barrel to our original barrel stove from 3 years ago, and that meant there was only a 6" hole between the two barrels. It worked ok for our brief initial test with a small fire, but once we tried to do a full boil, the stove didn't draft well enough to keep up with the volume of pyrolysis gasses produced by that much wood. This resulted in quite a lot of smoke.

I pride myself on my attention to detail when it comes to firewood seasoning, and most of our burns down at the sugarbush are basically smokeless. But yesterday, I'm pretty sure they could smell the burn from Whitehall. Things improved a little after we added an extra piece of stovepipe to the chimney. (Chimneys work a little bit like reverse siphons, so making them taller will generally create a stronger draft at the bottom.) But we definitely weren't up to our usual air quality standards, and it's a mistake I hope we won't repeat.

We did enough trial-and-error during the burn that we've got some good ideas to try on our next attempt, and I bet that by next year's sugarbush we'll have a working model figured out. Big thanks to Mike Sturdee for his continued stovebuilding work and his general tinkering skills.

Other News of the Commons

The world is really starting to wake up this week! We're hearing a lot more birds, and the grass is starting to green up where the snow has melted. Soon we should be seeing some of the spring ephemerals start to sprout, so be on the lookout for fresh shoots. It's a great opportunity to see if you can guess what they are by the leaves before they start to bloom. If you find a good patch of daffodils, see if you can gather any old leaves from last year. Once they've been broken down by the freeze/thaw cycle over the winter, they can be used to make excellent cordage.

In the Broader Movement

There were protests all over the country yesterday against the ongoing coup in Washington. Lots of White Lake folks went to the one in Muskegon, and while crowd size is incredibly difficult to judge without aerial photography, reports are that there were about 1500 people there. If you want to get involved in local pro-democracy organizing, you can join us on Fridays at noon at the Weathervane for Dance For Democracy, or join the local Indivisible group on Facebook.

Solidarity Recommendation Corner This Week

I'm combining two sections this week to recommend Pride, the 2014 film about Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. During the UK Miners' Strike of 1984-1985, Margaret Thatcher seized the bank accounts of the National Union of Mineworkers, hoping to force the miners back to work. Lesbian and gay organizers in London realized that they and the miners were facing a common enemy, and began raising money to support mining communities affected by the strike. It's a great comedy, and a great example of what we can achieve when we get past the divide-and-conquer dynamics the ruling class wants us engaged in.

This Week's Nails

Thanks for reading the whole newsletter! Another skittle-style manicure this week. At ten polishes a week, I'll have my whole collection swatched by sometime in... October? I probably have too much nail polish. Also, the burn from last week is healing well. Only time will tell if it's going to add to my collection of finger scars. I've already forgotten where half of them came from.