Tapping Trees
The thermometer outside the kitchen reads ten degrees when I come downstairs for breakfast. I dine alone, last one up: homemade granola with yogurt, maple syrup out on the table. Today, we start the two-day process of boiling sugar maple sap into syrup.
This farmouse dates all the way back to 1858, when Bill’s great grandparents homesteaded here. The sugar shack has been there at least 100 years of that time. I’m told the woodstove is much newer, but the long high heat of the sugaring process seems to cause premature aging in stoves; its surface topography is only flat if you take an average across the slopes. Bill says it’ll flatten out once it gets hot, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
The big, rectangular pans of maple sap we filled last night are frozen over when we arrive, but it doesn’t take long to get the fire going. Vapor rises from the sap, mixing with the wood smoke.
Technically, you can make syrup from many kinds of tree sap. But sugar maples are chosen for their high sugar content — which is still pretty low. 100 gallons of sap boil down to just three gallons of finished syrup. I think of my honeybees and their warm hives. They spend all summer fanning their tiny vats of much-sweeter nectar with their wings to reduce the water content by about 80%. Since we’re going for closer to 97% in a couple of days, we’re going to need a fire that is both hot and consistent.
In the meanwhile, Bill and Rick take down a nearby dead tree for extra firewood. Mary Ann makes a lovely soup with chorizo and homegrown kale, paired with bread made with corn and local wild rice. I take a few hours of work meetings, then join the group in setting new taps.
It feels almost unfair how easily the sap flows. Bags that were emptied yesterday are a quarter full again already, though they have frozen overnight. I imagine what it must have felt like to discover maple syrup, a wealth of much-needed winter calories just pouring from the trees.
“But I guess the hard part is the boiling and hauling?” I ask Bill.
“The hard part,” he says, “is having access to a high density of mature sugar maple trees.” Fair enough.
Bill hands us, in turn, the tools of the trade: an electric drill fitted with a 7/16" bladed bit, taps and pails, a hammer, a twig broken off nearby.
Rick goes first. Bill shows him a spot on a sugar maple that hasn’t been tapped yet this year: low so it’s easy to reach when the snow melts, South-facing so it’s warm enough for sap flow more of the day, a couple of inches away from any previous tap holes for structural integrity.
We drill in about an inch, clear the hole of sawdust with the twig, hammer in the tap, hang the pail.
Rick’s and my first taps are dry (they’ll work when it warms up) but Eileen’s starts to flow as soon as she drills the hole.
“We’ve got a gusher!” We joke. She scrambles to tap in the spigot and hang the bucket, though of course there’s no real rush. An eighth of a teaspoon dribbles out. But once the tap is in, it’s satisfying to watch the sap seep down the metal spout, drip and plink into the pail.
Between us, we drill about ten more taps — most dry, a few wet. It’s a cold day, so there’s not much flow, and what’s collected is too frozen to gather today.
That’s okay. We’ve got enough already in the sugar shack to have a bottling day tomorrow.
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