The main thing that gets me through january and february is Maple Syrup time. This is when we tap all of our sugar maple trees, let the sap flow into buckets, collect it and boil it down into thick, delicious maple syrup. Tree sap is mostly water, so just like the making of salt you have to let all that water evaporate and what's left is the sugar. We started tapping trees when I was a lot younger. We were at my elementry school's annual silent auction and there a few buckets for sale. Remembering in the Little House on the Praire books how they would tap trees I begged my dad to buy them, he did and the fun started. I think the best part isn't the actual syrup itself, but the whole process from watching the first drops ooze out, to walking in the house after a long day at school and being wrapped in a hug of sweet smelling mist, as it gets the whole house steamed up, but in a good way. This year was the first we have done it at our house in Delaware, and it was wonderful. Our older maple wasn't that great, but the younger of our two was practically poring sap. As you can see there I have some pictures.
hello roger again. how deep do you drill the holes for the drain plugs? do they just need to go under the bark of the tree or do they accually go into the wood of the tree for inch of so.
ReplyDeletealso do you know how long the sap will be running?. or does that depend on mother nature. roger