We've had a snowy winter here, having a base of about 2 feet of snow in the forest, and perhaps 12 inches elsewhere. It's lovely and crisp, so we're not particularly pining for spring. In several days, though, the temperature during the day will be about zero Celsius or more and below freezing at night; prime for maple sap flow.
Our little temporary evaporator is up and we've run it twice. The first time was in late February when we had several warm days. Our daughter-in-law was visiting and we wanted to test the system while she was here. We attached ten buckets to trees close to the evaporator and collected about 7 gallons of sap. We then watched that 7 gallons reduce to about 1 cup of maple syrup -- fairly pathetic, but at least we knew how to run everything by the time we were finished.
Here's a short video tour of our temporary setup:
Last week, we had another warm spell (just before this current deep freeze) and after having hung another 60 buckets, we collected about 55 gallons of sap. (As an aside, manoeuvring in among the trees while the ground is snowy and lumpy was an experience. Dave eventually got his snowshoes out, helping quite a bit, but they also added another exciting element to the collection process, as he got the backs of them stuck in the snow simultaneously, nearly falling over backwards and dumping a 10 gallon pail on himself!) Boiling in an open evaporator takes ages, so many hours after we started, we brought two big pots, which were half full of boiled sap, into the house and continued to finish-boil them on the stove. After completing the boil, testing the sweetness, filtering the syrup, we had about 2 litres of syrup. The ratio of sap to syrup was terrible (nearly 100:1 vs 40:1 which is considered the norm) and the filtering took forever.
We thought that, since we were newbies, we might be doing something wrong, but everyone we have spoken to has had the same problems. Nature wasn't being too agreeable. It's still really pre-season yet, so we're still hopeful that the coming warming weather will bring with it better results.
We're anticipating making about 70 litres of syrup ourselves and then buying syrup in bulk from a local supplier. We've bought a maple candy machine, so that I can make more than twelve candies at a time, and have a maple butter (cream) machine on order. I'll also be making maple sugar in a heavy duty mixer. We have packaging equipment, such as tubs, litre bottles, sugar shakers and all the related boxes and stickers, either already purchased or on order. I think we're ready to go.
As though this weren't enough, we decided to grow most, if not all, our vegetables this year. We don't yet have a greenhouse (another of Dave's planned projects), but I've started seeds in the kitchen and living room. We might not be able to walk around in the house once these sprouts are moved to pots.
I'll also be starting borage seeds for honey bees and milkweed for those gorgeous Monarch butterflies that we encountered on our property last fall.
Until next time,
Angi