35 overnight with light rain. Cloudy and 40 today with rain and snow showers. Felt colder than 40.
Into the woods by 4:30 AM to cook. Expected a light day. Had a problem with the R/O. The hose connecting the wash tank to the R/O pump wasn’t sealing tight. The pump sucked in air. Speculated it was a hairline fracture in the PVC fitting connecting the hose to the wash tank. Searched around the building for a replacement fitting; we have a large collection of unused fittings around the building. Its a 1” nipple with threads on one end and barbs on the other. Didn’t have a spare. Fortunately, the leak wasn’t enough to disrupt the R/O, but it was noticeable because there were bubbles in the hoses. The R/O completed the without incident but we were concerned about future use including the wash cycle. Then we found a 1” brass nipple from an unused fitting we used to use on transfer pump. Swapped the brass fitting with PVC. We now had tight seal and the wash cycle completed without air leaks.
We inspected the PVC fitting. Didn’t find any fractures but the fitting did have a gouge on the barrel. It seemed slight but must have been deep enough to prevent a good seal. The brass fitting is better then PVC.
Four small batches into the milk can. Because we had less sap, we didn’t fire hard. Enough to boil and cook, but not enough to run out of sap concentrate.
The day cooking.
4:50 R/O started
6:15 batch
6:20 R/O done
6:20 4.25″
6:45 batch
7:00 3.5″
7:20 batch
7:30 2.5″
7:55 batch
8:00 0.75″
8:15 done
Back to the farmhouse by 8:15 AM.