Sugaring Update

[helwen]

With help from some Ashfield neighbors, Deb and Dwight, we have pretty much finished the South Woods today -- just a couple more trees need to be added in, using some bits and bobs that nephew L has more familiarity with at this point. fitzw figures there are around 400 taps in those woods -- lots of lovely big trees there. Unfortunately one is no more, having fallen over sometime this winter -- on top of one of the main lines. I dug up most of the pipeline around it, with Deb finishing the bits I didn't have the arm/body strength for. Fortunate for us, this couple has 18 years of experience at sugaring, so that was a big help in finishing this section, with each person not really needing to wait on anyone else for instruction. Although to be fair, the untrained help has also been very helpful as well -- but it did mean we only spent 3 hours in the woods today, covering 2/3 of the taps in that time.

Rumor has it that it may snow again this week.... I'm hoping that's wrong, and that we'll get rain instead.

Oh, and after today, for any of my U.S. friends who feels like complaining about the snow -- if you haven't dug 50 feet of trenches, 1-2 deep through crust and ice (there was _no_ soft snow today), I don't want to hear about it... At least the scenery is a heckuvalot nicer up here than having to do that in the city, though :D

There's still a little more tapping to do tomorrow, but I don't think I'm involved in that one. That line uses some of the last of the old pipeline with bigger spouts than the rest of the trees have, so a different, larger, heavier drill has to be used to tap. Maybe after this year it can be phased out...

***
On the plus side of all this work, I suppose I could say it's like going to the gym for a workout, only instead of paying for a membership, I occasionally get paid for it :)

Comments

[flidaisairmid.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, do you have an estimated amount of syrup for this years tapping ? I understand that it takes something like 100 gallons of sap to render 1 gallon of syrup. I understand birch trees can also be tapped for syrup. We had a fairly young one at the place we lived previously, and the landlord's son and I considered attempting to tap it for syrup, but never did. I have wondered what kind of yield you get from a tapping operation

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

1) The estimate is anywhere between 25 (a really good year) to 75 (a really bad year) gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. Average is around 40, which is what the Massachusetts Maple Association (http://www.massmaple.org) publishes. I usually say 35-50, myself.

We have about 1500 taps set out this year. Each tap represents about 1 quart of syrup for the entire season (a good year), so that would produce a maximum of 375 gallons of syrup by our sugarhouse. Reality tends to be less than that; we had about the same number of taps last year, and made 255 gallons of syrup. It was a bad year...

2) Yes, I understand that you can tap birch trees for syrup. It is a very different kind of syrup, though. Alaska is one of the places that birch syrup is produced. Birch sap is the one that is about 100:1 for sap to syrup.

You can find out more about birch syrup at http://www.alaskabirchsyrup.com/abbisy.html .

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

There's still a little more tapping to do tomorrow, but I don't think I'm involved in that one. That line uses some of the last of the old pipeline with bigger spouts than the rest of the trees have, so a different, larger, heavier drill has to be used to tap. Maybe after this year it can be phased out...

While that pipeline should be phased out this year, the heavier power tapper may or may not be phased out: We use the same size taps for the buckets.

And I may need your help on that pipeline tomorrow, if I need to get it done before nephew L and the others arrive in the afternoon...