Tapping Those Maples

Our experience here in New Hampshire this week has echoed 

those of so many of our family and friends: 

it has been unlike anything we've experienced before. 

We will make an attempt to recount those changes

and modifications and continuing miracles later.

This week's post will present something that we have been

looking forward to since Christmas: maple tree tapping.

Visually we were treated to a sublime trees experience last autumn.

Here at early March, the sweet payoff begins in a different way.

(The image above shows the "grades" of maple syrup produced

during the late part of the season [left] to early [right].

They are ALL considered Grade A!)

 Maple Festival weekends have been held here  
yearly for consecutive decades.

Health crisis situations forced it to be cancelled for 2020.

However, we made "safe" arrangements with Just Maple

in Tilton, just 27 minutes to the north of us in Goffstown

(who share a special friendly relationship with the Rose

family in Franklin, our acquaintances from the Canterbury Ward).

And so were able to travel up to have a private tour. 

Delightful and educational!

 New to us was the idea that the freeze/thaw balance by

early March was when trees are tapped and "sap" is collected

and processed. Quotation marks are added because sap brings

an often mistaken mental image from what is actually collected.

We learned that the below-freezing night temps with

daytime temps in the 40s is optimum, so March is maple season!

It is a very labor intensive, traditional craft, with some 
technology and streamlining upgrades.

Pure pleasure (double entendre intended) was it for us

to meet and be informed by Pure Maple at Green Acres Farm

 owners and operators Barbara and Roger Proulx, 

shown here (above) at the end of our visit in the gift shop. 

(Wish I had purchased one of everything!)

This "full-time" operation for them plus daughter and her husband

began as a a 4H "experiment".

But it has since turned into a significant enterprise.

Pure Maple takes the lead in a small co-op with folks farther

north where a younger generation are turning a family farm

and its acreage from an ag business to maple production.

Barbara gave us the royal treatment with a private session,

showing us (above) the sugar maple leaf, left, and the red maple

leaf, right. Sugar maples provide the best sap for syrup.

 She talked about the traditional methods of drilling into

the maple trunks so that the taps can reach through the bark

to the sapwood where fluids flow, using a hand "bit and brace" drill . . .

. . . with bit diameter around 5/8" that allows 

the tap to be lightly hammered into place.

Here are large and small taps, which are collected after use,

cleaned and re-used many years running. Barbara indicated they

have about 2500 taps in use each season.

Here Barbara shows how more modern methods use

rubber tap lines to form a collection system among

a forest of trees, with sap running into large collection tanks.

This example, below, shows the juncture of multiple tap lines.

Though mechanized to some extent, the operation

and process is still very labor intensive and requires

a lot of overseeing and monitoring to ensure 

optimum collection. New England states have associations

which assist them with outreach and marketing.

Barbara talked about their business focusing on wholesale

accounts for retail outlets, and how Pure Maple is committed

NOT to compete with neighboring operations and farms.

Part of Barbara's fun educational presentation includes

brief discussion of two "critters" that also love the sap.

On the left here is the yellow belly sap sucker, a member

of the wood pecker family. They like to use their strong beaks

to bore their own holes into the bark of the maples at just 

the right time of year where the sap will flow, attract bugs

(who also like the sweetness), and then the birds return to collect

and eat these delicacies which come sugar coated!

Squirrels can seem so cute, but they know how to take advantage

of the collected sap, so they are discouraged any way possible.

Once outside, we took a pic of the educational tree

to show the wood pecker holes.

Using a "cookie" from a tree that had to be cut down,

Barbara showed us the signs from previous years' tapping.

Well within the bark exterior layers, you can see the healed-over

tunnels where the taps once had been placed, 2-3 per tree.

The tree continued to grow, healing over and adding layers

beyond where the taps had entered the previous surface layers

and removed at the end of the sap collecting season.

Barbara recounted how she often has new-comers ask if tapping

HURTS or damages the trees. Her response points out

that it would be folly to damage the source of their income!

Barbara walked us outside to the "sample" tap tree

very near the gift shop, convenient

to assist with the demonstration and teaching.

Here we see the standard collection bucket with its

metal roof, which protects the sap from being diluted

from air moisture condensation or rain/snow fall.

Behind the demo tree she pointed out their "sugar bush" --

(pictured below) or the grove of maple trees which they harvest from.

She noted that because the tubing systems are gravity fed,

and their property slopes away and to the left in this pic,

their collection containers are about as far from the sugar shack

as they can be. They use a tractor to haul them back.

Barbara removed the roof from the demo tree bucket and

seemed a little surprised how full it was, because at 10 a.m.

that morning when we were there, they had already harvested

the sap collected here once already. Inside the bucket is what

appears to be clear water - and when she dipped and poured

a few tablespoons into our mini paper cups, it tasted like

lightly sweetened water. But how fun to experience that!

 Next, we walked to the evaporation "sugar" shack.

Through the open roof, we see the steam escape

as the sap is boiled down. From the smoke stack,

we see the wood smoke drift, a sure sign of the work going 

on inside. The white tanks are where the sap 

had been collected out in the bush then brought here.

Stepping into the shack, we met son-in-law Eric,

whose job was tending to the evaporation.

He monitors the temperature levels of the evap tank,

adds anti-foaming powder as needed,

gathers the loads of pine logs needed to

stoke the oven (Roger's job is splitting logs) . . .

. . . shown here (below) closed up and working hard.

 Eric watches the oven for at least 8 hours each day 

of the season, adding fuel every 3 minutes or so.

The multi-chambered evaporation stove moves the slowly

condensing liquid until it has reached the right consistency,

then it is collected, cooled and taken to the production kitchen,

cleaned, strained, filtered, then prepared for selling in different forms.

It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.

Pancakes for breakfast will never seem the same!

As the tour ended, we returned and enjoyed ourselves

in the gift shop. Just Maple produces syrup 

(cleaned, strained, filtered) plus maple sugar, candy, 

flavorings, and more. The list of maple products also 

available from other producers is very extensive. 

My favorite purchase did NOT survive

the trip home to be included in this image:

maple sugar coated pecans -- gifts from two trees

from the north and south of this wonderful country.

Our peace of mind and routines have been shaken this week,

but what a pleasure to venture out and enjoy this experience.

My lamp was filled at thoughts of these folks still willing

and interested in this traditional and historic industry

(it is thought to have originated by happy accident in

native cultures), for Barbara's willingness to spend her time

to welcome and enlighten and educate us, 

and for the spirit of cooperation that we got a glimpse at.

So now that you know what is involved in production,

make sure you take one final waffle to wipe up

and enjoy every last drop of syrup on your plate!

Take care and be safe!