It's Maple Sugaring Season!

The forecast for the coming weeks in our area of the country predicts temps in the upper 30's-40's during the day and 20's-low 30's at night... which means that Maple Sugaring Season has begun! These are the perfect weather conditions for the maple sap to flow... above-freezing temps during the day, with below-freezing temps at night.

This has been the week of Maple Sugaring Preparations for us... we cleaned and sterilized our equipment, bought a couple of new buckets and spiles, tapped the trees and started gathering up piles and piles of kindling and wood for our first boil (hopefully!) next weekend.

This is our second year of sugaring. Last year, we had four taps in two big maple trees. We ended up with about 35 gallons of sap, which boiled down to about 2 quarts of syrup (you can read all about last year's sugaring here) This year, we've stepped it up to nine taps in 7 trees! I can't wait to see how much sap we end up with.

All ready to tap!

drilling holes for the spiles

We use plastic spiles with plastic tubing that
 that goes into 5 gallon buckets for most of
our trees... it's a little cleaner and more efficient
than the old fashioned metal spiles and pails. 

However... a couple of the trees are on a big
slope, so we had a hard time keeping the plastic
buckets from tipping over. On those trees, we're
trying the old-fashioned buckets that hang
right up on the tree. I think they're quite charming.

Big ol' maple with two taps.

We've started collecting kindling, for when it's time to boil.

If all goes as planned, I'll be reporting back next week with how our first boil of the season went! Until then... stay warm... less than 6 weeks till the first day of Spring!