Daisy

Here she is! The newest member of our family, Daisy. If you don't know she is a Jersey and will be providing all of our dairy needs... in a couple of years. Our Amish friends. who we have a cow share with, sold her and a bull to us. He hasn't been born yet. We'll post his pic when he arrives. We'll be naming him T-bone.

We had an added bonus of another barrel of sap on Wednesday. We thought that the sap flow was done and then we had a freezing night and the sap started flowing again. That brings us up to 14 gallons of syrup. If you are interested, we are selling it for $15 per quart. I had a request for a picture of our evaporator, so that is what you see above. It has a 2 ft cube fire box on top and in the front with a 6 inch by 24 by 24 ash box on the bottom. The hot gasses travel along the bottom of the evaporator pan in a chimney like space and then out the top. My plans on improving the design will include dual exhaust stacks and an improved front door. Those two factors I think cost me the greatest amount of unused heat loss. With some seasoned firewood we hit our highest chimney temperature 1700F! That was cooking! You should have seen the stove glowing and heard the popping of the steel, it was impressive.

Noah is going to put up a post in a few days so check back soon and leave him an encouraging note.

God bless, Josh