march (maple) madness

Having lived on this little farm for 3 full growing seasons already, we are becoming more and more in sync with the tasks of the season.

In March, we tap maple trees, at least the very few we happen to have here.

This year that was a grand total of two.

Why even bother tapping two trees, you ask?

Because even with only two trees we manage to get many gallons of sap, which yields 6-7 pints of the most delicious syrup you're ever tasted, especially so because you foraged it from your own land, and because it's in limited supply so you really enjoy it.

And so the ritual begins with the gathering of supplies - (free) plastic buckets, plastic taps, plastic tubing, a 5/16" drill bit and a drill.  Oh, and my favorite farm tool, a black plastic ice fishing sled.

I use sleds year-round, over grass, snow and ice, and they are fabulous for hauling buckets or weeds or hay bales or manure.

If it were up to me we'd use old metal spiles and metal sap buckets, but we already had plastic buckets, and they do hold more sap and keep the sap cleaner.

{if any of you have a few of the old supplies you want to get rid of, please contact us}

The hardest part of the process is pushing the spile into the plastic tubing. Luckily I had Papa handy to do this task so I could just stand around snapping pics.

After drilling a 5/16" hole about 2" deep at a slight upward angle, you insert the spile (with tubing attached), tapping it gently into the tree.

Insert the other end into the bucket. Seal the bucket with the lid to keep out spiders and dirt. If the sap is running, you will see sap flow into the bucket almost right away, although at a fairly slow pace.

Why does our maple tree have red flagging tape around it, you may be asking?

Well that's because our property is full of oaks and very few maples, so we walk around in the fall looking for maples when the leaves are on, and mark the trees with red flagging so we can find them in March when they are bare and all look the same.

Yup, we're brilliant that way.

Depending on the size of the tree, you may be able to place more than one spile. You can find some guidelines, and more specific tapping instructions, here.

One your taps are set, don't forget to come back often and check the buckets.  You may have many days in a row where you get nothing, then suddenly you can have an overflowing bucket in one day.

It all depends on the temperatures, ideally freezing at night and warm during the day.

The trek out there makes for some nice "sweetie" time anyway, so I always look forward to it.

Cheers -