Feeling Sappy

I'm not usually accused of having a sappy personality.  Silly for sure, or even maybe crazy - but not sappy.  But this year we're all feeling a little sappy after drilling a bunch of little holes in maple trees and hanging bags on them to catch the lifeblood of the trees (you'll never enjoy pure maple syrup innocently again).

We've collected around 100 gallons of sap so far and boiled much of it down on an evaporator we got from a very generous friend who was getting out of maple sugaring.  The evaporator is a wood fired stove with a couple big pans that sit on top, directly over the flame.  

 

 

We haven't drawn off any finished syrup yet, but should get about 2 gallons from what we've collected so far.  We have yet to see how much longer the trees will bleed flow and what our potential for production is this year.  I don't think we'll run out of wood, but we might run out of time.  Each finished gallon takes about 8 hours to boil down - and that's time that could be spent grafting and pruning apple trees.