We have a line of maple trees, an odd allee if you will, that was clearly planted but never intended to grow to full size as they are much too close together and in two very straight lines. It’s been suggested that perhaps they were a nursery row that was meant to sell. We rather like them as they give a border of sorts to our lawn area and help break this part of the farm up into manageable “rooms.”
Shortly after we moved to the farm, I got the wild notion that we should tap our maples and make syrup. Bryce is almost always on board with my crazy ideas so we ordered up some supplies and tapped 20 trees! That first year was quite an education as we were wholly unprepared for the massive amount of sap that we got. While that first year was a bit of a disaster, we did manage to make some very tasty syrup and therefore were hooked.
Every year since, we’ve gotten better (Bryce is the main maker) and more knowledgable. Bryce has moved from boiling the syrup on the old outdoor fireplace, to making a barrel evaporator. This year there’s talk of building a small sugar shack and upgrading to a faster and bigger evaporator.
We get great satisfaction from having our syrup all year and enjoy giving it to family and friends as well.
