How to Tap a Sugar Maple

When I tell my out of state friends that Sugaring Season has started in Maine they are often confused. Making maple syrup is a tradition in my family. I remember collecting sap from the trees in my current backyard (which used to be my grandparents home) when I was small. I would follow my grampa from tree to tree filling big garbage pails full of sap. Then we would spend weekends boiling it down in an open pan over an open fire in the backyard. Flies and other detritus added protein.

A few years ago, my family bought a larger property and we now tap over 200 trees each year and make 30-40 gallons of syrup. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup so there is a lot of collecting to do and we are a whole lot higher tech than what my grampa was in the backyard.

I made this video last weekend as we were finishing up tapping the trees. Click the title of this post to check out the YouTube video and enjoy! Welcome to my part of Maine!