It's that time of year again. We tapped a few trees today and Corey had done the others on Friday. Those had been drilled while everything was still frozen up. I was not sure that tapping frozen trees was okay, but Corey called the forestry office and they said it was fine. The ones we tapped today sure were flowing. The sap was pouring in a steady stream for a bit out of one of the taps (see below). Typically, your doing well to get a slow and steady drip, drip, drip. Sap runs best when the temperatures are below freezing at night and well above freezing during the day. Today it was nice and warm, and the forecast looks promising for sap production in the coming week.
Here I am drilling the hole.
Pounding in the tap.
We ran out of last year's batch of maple syrup in December, so we're ready!
Doing this brings back such great memories of using these same buckets and taps on my parent's trees growing up. I know at the time I probably complained a lot about the hauling of heavy buckets, but I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. So glad Lily will have the same experience to remember.
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3 comments:
I love the pic of the sap in a stream, especially since it generally doesn't run like that.
I like that one too. I'm glad you posted these. It's something I've never seen here in VA.
I don't have the same childhood memories of actually tapping trees myself. But I do have very strong memories of visiting a very complicated maple syrup "farm" as a kid. It was a great experience seeing the whole process from start to finish. I particularly remember the huge vat of sap boiling away. What a great, unique smell.
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