Spring

[Throbbin Rods]

Time to call in the fire and pee on the dogs, or however that goes..
Yesterday I noticed buds on some of my maple trees. Yesterday's sap pick up had a couple of buckets showing a touch of yellow. Pulled the taps this morning.
For my very first attempt at sugaring I am happy with the results. My ultimate goal was a gallon of syrup, figured that would take care of Karen and me for a year, plus take care of the family vacation in Maine.
I ended up with just over 2.5 gallons from 23 taps. 6 of the taps were out for the whole season, the remainder were out for three weeks. I can send some to my kids and Karen's son stopped in for a visit and I sent him home with some
The credit for my new expensive past time goes to my cousin and friend from Vermont. He has a huge setup running several thousand taps and he gave me the first 6 buckets and taps, along with tons of great advice. He was always available to answer questions and give me crap.
Next year if the $$ come together I plan to have a better set up consisting of:
Sugar shack 8' x 8' or 10' x 10' with a cupola with cantilevered windows so they can be opened while boiling. Good big overhang to stack wood. I figure 2-3 bundles of slab wood will cover me for firewood. Good stuff for sitting around the fire pit too.
Sap line running 850 feet along my east property line, then running about 250 feet west down hill to the shack. Maybe another line running North/South through the middle of my woods for another 450' Guessing at least 150-200 taps
And this little beauty here

evaporator.jpg

$800
Built just across the river in Vermont. No solder or lead, pan is tig welded stainless. 2' x 3'. Just cement in the fire brick and boil!
I learned a lot this winter. Wading through snow every day to lug buckets of sap helped in my continuing recovery. I slept pretty well through this winter because I kept myself good and tired!!
Now on to spring. I have a boat and motor to put together, my old neighbow is coming up from Florida to buy that and my old Suburban and take the whole mess back with him. Then a couple more boats to finish, and fishing , lots of fishing!!

[aunt betty]

It's hard to not burn the syrup.
Made some syrup from the "lawn trees" a few years back and what really made it idiot proof was using a big crock pot to thicken it up. Takes for-fuckin-ever.