It warmed up a bit and the sap started flowing again. The next few days will be slow as the weather seems to be colder again. It may just take a little longer to fill these buckets up.
Today, the good tree filled up half a bucket, the second best a third of a bucket, and the slacker tree, a quarter. It seems to be going much slower this year. Maybe we started a bit too early.
In the meantime, we washed the big pan that we’ll be cooking the sap in and tomorrow we’ll prepare our outdoors refrigerator.
Did you know that you can tap birch trees as well? Should we try it? Did anyone ever taste birch syrup?
Never tried birch syrup. Sounds cool though!
It does! We should try it!
Yep!
March weather is so wacky! It’ll get there.
Yeah, I just like complaining 🙂
Are these yours? Tell me all about it. What variety of Maple is it etc etc etc. You should have worked out by now that anything like this fascinates me. I want to know everything so that next time my smartypants sister-in-law says something about maple syrup I can destroy her with FACTS.
And now I have gone back to your previous posts and it is all there. That’s the problem with having more on my mind that I have room for.
Ask away! Oh, the variety of tree is sugar maple. It produces the most sap even when using gravity methods. I’ll be happy to answer any questions that I know the answer to.
Birch syrup. Never had it but it sounds interesting!
I think we’ll try it this year!
I’ve never tried birch, but I guess it has less taste, when it comes to sugar it depends on the cooking time. There is also ‘poteau’ syrup as it is called in Quebec.
I think we might try it this year! What is poteau? It translates to ‘post’, is it like pole syrup? Are they tapping telephone poles 🙂
you got the joke!
Haha. Good one 🙂
I have friends who did birch syrup – slightly less sweet, with a birch beer flavor twist. I liked it.
You convinced me! I think we’ll give it a try 🙂
This is terrific…how often can you “tap” a tree, and is there ever a danger of doing any damage? Would love to get some thoughts on that in an upcoming post if you haven’t already done so, but I don’t think I’ve seen it! Love this series…
So glad you like it! It came up in the comments. Maybe I’ll do a FAQ post, so ask away! You tap a tree once a year. There is only a small window in the weather when the temperatures are below freezing at night and above during the day. By next season the tree has healed and is ready for another round.
That’s what I wanted to know! Thanks so much and looking forward to the next step in the process!
I’ve tried birch sap as is – it’s a fairly popular drink in Russian stores in Brooklyn. It’s lightly sweet and doesn’t have such pronounced aroma as maple,but I liked it. In my opinion, It’s worth collecting. 🙂
I think I’ll try it! Sounds intriguing.
Worth trying! 🙂
I guess you need to have patience when tapping your own maple syrup.
And I don’t know if I’ve ever had birch syrup, but I do like birch beer…
Ooooh, so maybe…we can tap the birch trees and make beer!
that would be wonderful!
I never knew that you could tap birch trees. You should totally try and let us know how it goes.
I think I might!