...but it sure feels nice.
Oh my goodness. Remember when I tapped the trees? I was inspired by Karen over at The Art of Doing Stuff who taps her single Maple tree. We have some really old Maple trees on the property so I thought I'd give it a shot. I put a total of 6 taps in between three trees. It's been below freezing for a good part of this time but the trees have still produced, and how.
That's about 38 gallons of sap sitting out on the porch. Initially I was freezing it but we ran out of space. So now it's all having a big thaw out outside.
At this point I am scrambling for containers to hold the stuff. The abundance from these three simple trees borders on horrifying. It's like when you buy a 6-pack of zucchini starts and, in spring madness, plant them all. Then every time you walk past the garden there are hundreds of zucchini that grow when your back is turned? Every time I look at the trees there is another 3-4 gallons to pour off. It has to go somewhere. I'm scrounging water bottles at this point.
Even when homesteading on a micro-level, you can never have too many buckets.
Apparently.
I was not prepared.
Saturday is going to be a big boiling off day. I'll make a fire outside in the wee hours of the morning and keep topping the pots off. Meals and cocoa will be cooked over the fire, campout style. I'll record numbers and see how we do with it. Then I think I'm done with this project for this season. The initial delight and reverence when tapping the trees (sap! magic tree sugar!) turned to unease within the first day. It's ridiculous - (I know this on an intellectual level) but on some visceral level the steady drip, drip, drip of the sap from the tree makes me feel like like they're being bled. These three old trees in the yard; drip, drip, drip. I admit, it's crazy. But it's also unsettling
Kind of like ticks. It's creepy.
Stay tuned. The wood is still fresh and the fire pit needs dug out. Syrup day is going to be either a success or a disaster. It's a 50/50 bet at this point.
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