Well we got started on our maple sugaring season yesterday, with 40+ degree weather yesterday, it was time to get the taps in. Thankfully I had lots of energetic help. The boys rounded up the buckets and helped blaze trails through the snowpack!
On our way to tap the first tree with the kids, notice that I no longer need to carry any tools, just an iced coffee for me this year.
Our first tree required a little shoveling of the driveway snow banks before we could reach it, but the warm weather made for easy shoveling.
As you can see the snow got a little deep once you stepped off the well packed down trail to the tree. Lucky for me, I was just the supervisor and all my assistants had the tools we needed to tap this maple tree.
My oldest got to drill his first tap into this maple tree. It’s a little challenging when you have two people driving, but we managed to get it done.
Not to be outdone, it was no time for the younger son, to hammer in the plastic tap. Watch the fingers!
After attaching the tubing to the tap, this red maple is now on the lateral line and dripping sap. Only 40 plus taps left to go…
Sugaring season wouldn’t be complete with out my oldest looking to taste the sap as it flows out of the trees. He is always amazed by how it runs out of the trees and how it tastes. This boy loves the sweet taste of the maple sap, but not pure maple syrup, go figure.
This year we had so much snow it was fun watching the kids try and navigate the deep snowpack. I found myself just watching them trying to walk around and it was hard not to giggle a bit when they got stuck. It was a good day yesterday, and hopefully today we can dig out the evaporator and finish up the last couple taps that will be on buckets this year.
This year with the deep snow, I found it helpful to have one of these bins to haul around in the woods that contained everything we needed to tap our trees.
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