It was sunny today, but a cold east wind off of Lake Michigan kept the sap from flowing. Its common during the season to have a few days of no sap, then a run for a day, maybe more, then no sap again. We have to be patient. In January logs were made in the woods. There are still a lot of tree tops around the woods. And stumps. We took down a large, old tree by the building. It was a nice tree and has been in many photographs over the years. It was sad to cut down the tree, but we have not tapped it for several years now. As the tree was large and quite old, we are all curious about how old it is. When we have a chance we will count the growth rings.
Windy, cloudy, and high temperature only of 30 degrees today. No sap flowing today. Icicles of sap drips were hanging off the spouts. Maple trees need sunny above freezing days and below freezing nights. Verna says, “No sap flows when the North wind blows.” Ned just boiled down the remaining sap in the evaporator this morning, though was not enough for finishing off to bottle. Currently 32 quarts of maple syrup this season are bottled, labeled, and ready.
It was an odd day for weather. Last night we had snow flurries, then rain. By morning it was about 35 degrees. And the sap started to flow. We collected about 150 gallons of sap. Family, friends and neighbors came to help. It was not a lot of sap, but its best to collect it while its fresh. And we had help because of the weekend. While collecting, snow flurries returned. For awhile we feared a repeat of yesterdays snow. But these flurries stayed light. We had to empty the ice from the storage tanks from earlier in the week. The ice is just water without any of the sugar that’s in sap so there is no loss discarding the ice. Fired up the evaporator to boil. A batch of almost finished syrup was drawn off earlier this evening. Don’t now how much yet.
The day started sunny, but cold. Overnight low was 12 degrees. By 9:00 am it warmed to 33 degrees. The plan for the day was to complete the tapping. We still had about 85 taps to put out. By 12:30 it started to get cloudy. We met up at 1:00 pm to tap. Loaded the tractor with buckets, covers, spouts and the auger and headed to the west side of the woods. By 2:15 the weather changed. First a few light flakes. Then a heavy snow started falling. We were determined to finish the tapping so we kept on going in the snow. In a short time everything was covered with snow. It was snowing hard and getting hard to see, but we wanted to finish so we stayed at it. By 3:30 we were done. There are about 415 taps out.
The race was on to beat the ice. Boiled all night. Took shifts. Dad went in at 7:30 in the evening. Dean and Karl stayed until mid-night when Dad came back to complete the boiling. He finished be 7:30 am. There is still sap in the evaporator waiting to boil down to syrup. But the sap is out of the tanks so we won’t get ice blocks. Once in the evaporator we can always start a fire to melt the ice. It took about 20 hours to boil through the sap. And we bottled 21 quarts of syrup already. At 10:26 pm CST we officially completed the first gallon of syrup for the 2004 season. Dad reports the morning shift from mid-night to 7:30 am was very cold! As the tanks emptied, the firing slows down and generates less heat. And then all the steam and dripping water starts to freeze. We have an impressive collection of ice hanging from the windows.
The trees worked overtime. They must have dripped all night. Trees tapped at 4:00 in the afternoon were full by 10:00 the next morning. A cold front was moving through and the weather changing. It was getting much colder, into the 20s. So the race was on to collect the sap before it all froze in the buckets. We started collecting about 10:00 am and were pretty much done by noon. We collected 400 gallons of sap. Ice was already forming in the buckets so waiting was not an option. As the weather was still getting colder we were still faced with ice in the storage tanks. So we started the evaporator to boil down the sap. We will boil all night. Tomorrow is also forecast to be cold, in the 20s. If we don’t boil down the sap our storage tanks will be a block of ice. It will be a long night.
Its tappin time. About 320 taps out now. Its a lot of work using the hand auger to drill the holes in the trees. After about 50 your arm starts to get tired. Each tap gets a hole drilled about 1 inch deep, a spout lightly hammered in, a pail and a cover for the pail. We use a tractor to takes the buckets and covers into the woods. The rain about a week ago melted much of the snow in the woods making it much easier to get around. Aap was following in the trees today. After drilling a hole, the sap started running out. There was a steady drip, drip, drip into the pail. It was sunny and about 40 degrees, but the wind was cold. The weather forecast is for cold and snow tonight and tomorrow. We will finish the tapping but do not expect to collect any sap yet.
M – Maple Sugar Trees that Stand so Tall.
A – All Trees the Good Lord Gave Us All.
P – Pure Maple Syrup that People Love.
L – Labor of Love Making Maple Syrup.
E – Enjoying Nature’s Pure Maple Syrup.
S – Sweet Sap that Drips from Maple Trees in the Spring.
Y – Your Work to Drill Holes, Pound Spouts and Hang Buckets on Maple Trees.
R – Roaming from Tree-to-Tree Collecting Sweet Maple Sap.
U – Using Evaporators to Boil Out Water Making the Sap Sweeter, Darker and Thicker as it Becomes Maple Syrup.
P – Pouring on Pancakes, Waffles and Many Other Foods Making Them Taste sooo Delicious!
Used with permission. Copyright 1998 Verna D. Zander
A few taps are out. Testing the weather. They are dripping. That is to be expected as it is the second week of March. Its actually getting late for tapping. There are usually several runs of sap. An early run at the beginning of the season. And heavy run about 3 weeks in with shorter runs in-between. Of course it is not predictable. Sap is the food the maple tree needs to make leaves so it has to go up some time. Freezing nights and sunny days help it move. So that’s the weather we wait for.
Getting organized for tapping this week. There is always great anticipation leading up to tapping. We know the whole season will be a lot of work, but we do it any way. Its a labor of love. As a small operation, we do everything manually. Tapping by hand drill. Buckets and spouts, no tubing. Collecting with 5 gallons pails. Boiling the sap over a wood fired evaporator. The wood shed holds about 12 cords of wood. All cut with chain saws and split by axe and sledge hammer. One cord of wood is 4 feet wide, 4 feet high and 8 feet long. Its a lot of work just cutting the wood. It takes about 10 hours to boil off 200 gallons of sap that results in 5 gallons of finished maple syrup. Yup…that a ratio of 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. And finally all the bottling by hand. At an hourly rate, we would not earn much.