In honor of both National Dog Day as well as “throwback thursday”, please enjoy these pictures of our namesake, then and now. Nova the dog will be turning 10 in November! We all have high hopes that the magical powers of maple syrup will help her live forever! If you’ve had the pleasure of meeting her, you know that her favorite toy is a tennis ball, and her favorite place to be is working in the woods with us.

Our Reverse Osmosis (RO) machine is the workhorse of our sugar shack. Each season it processes hundreds of thousands of gallons of sap, taking out 95% of the water and concentrating the sugar content twenty fold. Our machine has nine membranes in series, each one taking a bit more water out of the sap. We always take proper care of our membranes with daily rinses and frequent soap/acid washes, however over time a few of ours have degraded for various reasons. We just received four new Hydranautics 8×40″ membranes for the 2022 season. The membranes at the end of the line are worked the hardest. The sugar content rises into the double digits and our booster pump raises the pressure up to 650 PSI. We currently have three different types of membranes, all of varying ages. This week we’ll do a performance test and retire four of the worst performing membranes and then re-order the remaining nine in the most efficient order. Having efficient membranes allows the machine to operate at a lower pressure, increase pump throughput, and extends the longevity of the membranes. Our RO is just large enough for our operation, the additional performance should really help this spring!

We’d like send best wishes to our NMS team member Lauren on her wedding day today. We wish her and Matt a future filled with love and happiness. Congratulations!