Tapped

Several years ago we bought taps online so that we could collect sap and make maple syrup.  This year, with the help of some friends, we are making our first attempt.  This week began with a few days in the 40's (though as it turned out only one of them sunny), so on Sunday B tapped eight trees on our property.  Most of our trees are of the silver maple variety, so not the preferred hard wood, but our research has shown, that we can still get a nice product from the trees.

By Monday morning a few of them were flowing freely.  So far we have collected about a gallon of sap, and our weather is briefly turning cooler again.  It looks like, over the weekend and next week will be the perfect weather for a nice flow. 

With rain expected yesterday afternoon and evening, B rigged some tubing from the taps into lids for the buckets, so that we could keep the water out of them.  So far it has worked pretty slick.  With 35 mile per hour winds overnight, I am anxious to get outside and see if all of our buckets are still attached to the trees.

The most surprising thing is how water like and lightly sweet the sap flowing from the tree is.  I am also struck once again how easy this process is, at least so far.  We will see how it progresses when it comes to cooking time.  More soon.