Time to Tap the Maple Trees

Sunday afternoon was beautiful, sunny, and warm here. (For my southern friends, warm for us is near 50 degrees. :) Once the temperatures start getting well above freezing during the day, but still fall below freezing at night, it's time to tap the maple trees. Since the snow is still pretty deep, getting to the trees can be a real challenge unless we wear snowshoes. Yet even with snowshoes, the snow was so wet this day that as Whit and I carried the barrel with our taps, buckets and lids, we kept getting the toes of our snowshoes stuck in the heavy snow and then we'd trip, struggling to get back up again in the deep, wet snow. I finally figured out that I really had to walk heel to toe to keep my toes up and on top of the snow. Finally we made it out to where the sled was waiting. We transferred the tapping supplies to the sled so we could pull it around with us.


Whit did something bad to his left shoulder awhile ago, so he wasn't able to help with the drilling much. TBear and I learned just how thankful we are for Whit when his arm doesn't hurt! Drilling the holes wasn't too bad for the first tap or two, but by the time we'd done 16 of them, TBear and I were both glad we didn't have any more buckets!

After we drilled the hole, Whit put the tap in and then the bucket was hung under it to catch the sap.


We put lids on the buckets to keep bugs, bark and other junk out of the sap.

The prints in the snow look like someone was walking on tennis rackets...

We are very thankful for the snowshoes. It's hard to believe that the snow is about two feet deep here still.

The sap is running, and the bucket fills one drop at a time. : )

In addition to the warm day, I was pleased to see signs of spring. This bud is on a maple tree.

When we got back to the barn, I noticed that the baby goat, Nina, was sitting on top of Ruthie's back, while Nina's mother, Kappy, stands nearby.... probably thankful that Ruth was so accommodating. Interestingly enough, my sheep, Ruth, and our goat, Kappy, are the two oldest members of our flerd. Both are about 9 years old.
Hopefully the temperatures will continue to be warm during the day and remain cool at night so the buckets will fill quickly and we can start boiling the sap down into syrup soon. If you'd like to read more about how to tap trees and make your own syrup, here's a link to a University of Maine cooperative extension article.