Each Spring, we tap our maple trees and make maple syrup. It's a good exercise for us, walking those cold woods early in the year when we need it the most. Once we get some syrup ready, we have the family out for pancakes with maple syrup and blueberry syrup from our fall berries.
This year we were concentrating on the greenhouse progress, and almost let the season get away from us. You have to tap maple trees that are at least 6" in diameter, when the weather is warming to above freezing during the day, and below freezing at night. That way you can harvest the sap as it moves up and down the tree trunk each day. Once the trees "bud out" meaning those little branch tip buds swell, the season is over and any sap taken has a green and funky taste.
Many of our bigger trees here are already budded out so it's too late for them this year, so we had to roam out in the woods, searching for shorter trees that couldn't reach so far into the sun, or had lots of shade on them. We found a few, and yesterday afternoon, tapped into them.
First Jim drills a hole about an inch and a half into the bark. We used to use metal spiles, the very old kind, but then moved to hand-whittled ones out of sumac, and then to just using tubing. This year, Kim gave me her excess plastic tubing from her c-pap machine, and it worked just great! Thanks Kim! We were able to make a smaller hole in the tree, seal the hole with the larger end of the tube, and snake the thin hose right down into the plastic jugs we tie to the tree.
It was cold out yesterday, a crisp shivery walk in the woods to hang our jugs. The pictures show Jim drilling the holes, a hole just dropping a drip of clear sap, the first run of sap filling a tube, and the whole assembly ready to go, with last year's healed tapping scar just to the right of this year's hole.
This morning, I went out with my bucket to see what nature had left for us in the jugs. The sun was low in the sky and the shadows on the sparkling snow stretching long and blue between the trees. This jug had about 2" of sap in the bottom of the jug, and more was frozen in the tube on its way down. I just left them all in place, and this afternoon when its warm and everything's running, Anna and I will go out and harvest the first run of sap.
Then we'll have days of trudging out there at least twice a day to collect that clear, sparkling tree juice to boil down into amber colored syrup. Yummmmm
Each Spring, we tap our maple trees and make maple syrup. It's a good exercise for us, walking those cold woods early in the year when we need it the most. Once we get some syrup ready, we have the family out for pancakes with maple syrup and blueberry syrup from our fall berries.
This year we were concentrating on the greenhouse progress, and almost let the season get away from us. You have to tap maple trees that are at least 6" in diameter, when the weather is warming to above freezing during the day, and below freezing at night. That way you can harvest the sap as it moves up and down the tree trunk each day. Once the trees "bud out" meaning those little branch tip buds swell, the season is over and any sap taken has a green and funky taste.
Many of our bigger trees here are already budded out so it's too late for them this year, so we had to roam out in the woods, searching for shorter trees that couldn't reach so far into the sun, or had lots of shade on them. We found a few, and yesterday afternoon, tapped into them.
First Jim drills a hole about an inch and a half into the bark. We used to use metal spiles, the very old kind, but then moved to hand-whittled ones out of sumac, and then to just using tubing. This year, Kim gave me her excess plastic tubing from her c-pap machine, and it worked just great! Thanks Kim! We were able to make a smaller hole in the tree, seal the hole with the larger end of the tube, and snake the thin hose right down into the plastic jugs we tie to the tree.
It was cold out yesterday, a crisp shivery walk in the woods to hang our jugs. The pictures show Jim drilling the holes, a hole just dropping a drip of clear sap, the first run of sap filling a tube, and the whole assembly ready to go, with last year's healed tapping scar just to the right of this year's hole.
This morning, I went out with my bucket to see what nature had left for us in the jugs. The sun was low in the sky and the shadows on the sparkling snow stretching long and blue between the trees. This jug had about 2" of sap in the bottom of the jug, and more was frozen in the tube on its way down. I just left them all in place, and this afternoon when its warm and everything's running, Anna and I will go out and harvest the first run of sap.
Then we'll have days of trudging out there at least twice a day to collect that clear, sparkling tree juice to boil down into amber colored syrup. Yummmmm
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