Getting Ready for Maple Syrup Season

 It is now officially fall!  Which also means that maple syrup season is

just right around the corner.  So we decided to show in this post how

we are getting setup for it.  We'll do another post about this soon, when

we are actually tapping them all for the coming season, but

this is just a quick overview.

 These are the tools you'll need to get started (for the way we did it the past few years):

Drill

1/2 drill bit

3/8 drill bit

Spongy kinda centered sticks

or other sturdy sticks to drill the center out of at least 3\4 in size

Baling Twine

Buckets w/ lids 

Rubber mallet

Pocket knife

Drill your centers out

and then taper your ends down so they will fit in an 1\2 hole.  Drill a test hole in a

scrap piece of wood to make sure they fit!

 Learn how to identify your maples there are different kinds in

different places, so it pays to do some research and maybe track down

a field guide. You would be amazed at how much you may learn

about trees and types (and we run a sawmill!).

 Drill your holes at about a 35 degree angle and about 1 1/2  inches

deep (you just want to drill into the outer bark) on the southern side

because it gets the sun sooner and longer. You want it under the

largest limb because that will be where the most sap is

running to and from.

 Tap your spile in till it's good and snug.

 We have always used string to tie our buckets.  The plus to this is

that it marks your trees for next year without harming the tree or

hitting a nail with the sawmill a couple of years from now.

 Placing the lid back on the bucket keeps rainwater and such out.

We'll be tapping a bunch of trees this year, so we hope to collect a good

bit of sap and make lots of yummy maple syrup to store and

use for a long time.

The ratio differs from place to place, but the

last time we did it, it came out to about 

45 gallons of sap to 1 gallon of syrup.

We hope y'all found this helpful and thanks for stopping by!