Our Maple Syrup Adventure Begins!

We officially have Maple Fever!
I have been reading lots of "grow your own", "make your own", and "do it your self" type books and just happened to come across Backyard Sugarin' by Rick Mann at our local library. He makes it seem so easy and fun to produce a small supply of syrup in your backyard! In my excitement I began sharing all the info with Pat, then fever hit us! We collected all the supplies and even located some great trees (in Jackson at Pat's parents house and at their neighbors)! Last weekend we decided it was time to set the taps.

These photo's are by James who was sent with strict instructions to take pics of tapping the trees since I could not come (I was home with a sick babe:-(
Here Pat is pushing his homemade sap collection sled up the field to the sugar maples.

We had gone out earlier to identify and tag the trees that we are 99% sure are sugar maples?? 99% because the fever hit us after the trees had lost their leaves and were buried by a foot of snow! I researched how to identify them just by the buds and the leaves that I could find after digging in the snow at the base of the tree. If I'm wrong we are sure to end up with some interesting syrup!
Here is James' pic of his Dad drilling the tap:

Next the tap is set in the hole and the bucket and lid are placed. We got a great deal on taps, buckets and lids from a friend of Pat's who had extra he was not using.

Here you can just barely see the first drop of sap coming to the end of the tap! Success!

This little video was also shot by James and then edited at home (with a little help from Mom!)


We have now collected over 35 gallons of sap and are looking forward to trying our hand at boiling this weekend! Stay tuned for more pics coming soon!!