We had a good day in the sugarbush today

We started tapping about 10:00 this morning. At 4:45 whe had hung 800 more buckets.
The temps never dropped below freezing last night and the snow is settling. Yesterday the snow was crotch high, today knee high. Still on snowshoes.
We're blessed with several generations of family, plus some really great friends who love the sugaring season as much as we do.
My uncle and I are the old timers. He drives the tractor, and today the kids decided that I should stay on the trailer and pull buckets, and slid a cover in them and toss them out to the guys hanging them. That was good with me, as yesterday, I showed them that I had a little something left in me after trecking through the deep snow all afternoon hanging buckets, but I was whiooped last night.
This year we have two gas powered tappers which save a lot of steps on snow shoes. As I said last night the roads were cut parallel years back and are about 150 feet apart. Now the guys don't zigzag from road to 75' in. The two tapping crews walk parallel to the road and we toss buckets and covers back to the extremities.
Back when my dad was alive, he drilled the holes in the trees another person followed him and inserted a pill, (now not allowed) and drove the spile in the hole. Then the third person caried a stack of buckets on his sholder and hung a bucket on each spile, and then followed by another person carring covers to attach to the buckets. Quite the line of individuals folowing my dads snowshoe tracks, and it never failed that the bucket guy and cover guy would run out way away from the bobsleigh carring the supplies.
The pics were all taken this afternoon. First of the sap house, then the guys working in the woods, My cousin Kevin in the next to last. pic went down to his belley' a crevis in the limestone floor of the bush, but by the time I got my camera focased he was nearly back on his feet. The parallel roads are a little over 1/2 mile long and the bush covers 60A.
The last pic is of the crew taking a well deserver break after tapping two roads.
We don't tap all of the bush, any more since my dad lost his health 15 years back, but we are carring on both my Grandad's and Farher's legisy.
Loren the Acg.






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thats great,,very interesting,,,best of luck for a great season,,,did you get the dozer fixed?

Neat pix. Thanks for sharing. What was the "pill" that is no longer allowed? And why is it outlawed?

The "pill" was inserted in the drilled hole to slow down the healing process that is natural to the tree, As with about every pill that people take nowdays there are side affects. The side affect of these pills was that the syrup was no longer "Pure Maple Syrup" and it had aditives.
Loren

I love the pictures and i have a couple questions about the process if you dont mind ??
How many taps do you put in a tree.
How deep do the taps have to go.
How many gallons is the buckets looks close to 5
How long does it take to fill up a bucket.
Can you tap the same tree every year.
when do you know when to take the tap out is there a limit you can get from each tree so it want die.
Do you just plug it when you take the taps out.
Well i guess there is more than a couple questions and im sure i could find them on the internet but i would rather hear it from a man that actually knows how. It looks very interesting to me when i see the pictures. And you sound like you are feeling better today and thats great.

Awesome. The neighbor with a big sugarbush is in high gear here as well. I just might have to tap mine as well. I wasn't planning on it but you make it look like fun. I only have 50 or so buckets. I need a better set up to boil.

Ditchwitch,
The buckets hold 12 qts. our rule of thumb on smaller trees is if the trunk is bigger than the top of the bucket we will put one tap in it. If a tree is big enough so that a guy like me with long arms, can't reach around it and touch fingers, we will hang two buckets if the tree is totally healthy. Our family has tapped trees in this bush for nearly 10 decades. We have a very few trees that we hang 3 buckets on.
When the buds start to swell on the limbs, it is time to pull the taps and end the season. Usually the first or second week of April, depending on winter snow and temp. during March. The holes are left open to heal naturaly. The buckets will fill in 12 hrs. when weather conditions are near perfect. ( below freezing overnight and in the 40's during the day, and very important factor lots of melting snow going into the ground that the trees can asorb and sent up to their canopy.
Hope I covered all your questions.
Loren

You did and i thank you so much for the info.I really hated to ask so many question but it looks so interesting.And i have never seen or spoken to anyone that actually does that. I mean i knew where the maple syrup comes but to see and talk to someone first hand that does it is pretty dam awesome in my book.. Do you sell the syrup and if so is there a way i can purchase a few bottles from you.

Good info to get from someone who does it and must be doing it right to sustain the trees for so long a time !

I would suspect there are those who may come into a woods only to drain it dry and move on ? Just like some of the farm ground renters will do.

Hey Loren,

I finished plowing out the roads yesterday. We haven't lost as much snow as you have yet. I have places where I made two passes with the OC-4 pushing all I could without getting stuck and still have a foot of snow underneath yet. Don't think I'll tap any today. That wind is COLD! But I don't tap anywhere as many as you do either. Got the sap wagon drug outta the snow yesterday also. I'll probably load buckets and such on today and start tomorrow.


Weren't the pills mostly chlorine? I remember that there was some controversy among syrup producer about whether or not the pills should be allowed.

Brendon,

How do you boil now?

-We finished tapping on the home place today. A few hours tomorrow will finish the neighbor's woods above us. It never warmed up enough to run today. I spent the afternoon fiddling with the loader tractor. It needs to run so I can move my sander out of the way, so we can load wood out of the shed. i am guessing that it will be Saturday or Sunday before I boil anything.

In an earlier post I mentioned water problems at home. I lost three days this week dealing with that. In case anyone needs to know, if enough porcupine fur is sucked into a submersible pump, it will stop working. Plowed a road to the spring,borrowed a ditch pump, pumped the spring out, removed said porcupine, and installed a new pump. Added MUCHO Clorox, not going to drink or cook with the water for a few weeks.

Friend of mine has a small operation. He hung 275 buckets Mon and Tues. Darn near killed him he said, first time he's been on snowshoes in 50 years. I think he's 73 this year. He loves it.

He also told about a call he got from some other sugar maker who shovels all around his trees. I understand there were a lot of sore muscles there as they hung over 1500 in a day!