March 13th TAP, TAP, TAP
The thermometer reads 32 degrees at 9 a.m. and rising fast. It's sunny besides. I can wait no longer. Armed with brace and bit, spiles and buckets, we shall begin to tap the maple trees.

Tapping the maple trees is a fairly simple procedure, especially when tapping only a handful of trees. Commercial sugar producers may tap as many as 500 to 1,000 trees or more. I tap ten, still a formidable commitment.

While Pete is busy in the shed collecting his tools; a hammer, brace and 3/8 inch bit, I organize my buckets (tin cans and gallon jugs) and spiles. Spiles are the little tubes or spouts that direct the flowing sap out of the tree and into the bucket. They can be made out of hollowed out sumac or elderberry branches about one half inch in diameter and two inches long. These, however, eventually crack and deteriorate, so new ones need to be fashioned each year. A better way is to buy the metal spiles (complete with hook for hanging the bucket) or the newer plastic ones available at sugar supply houses or hardware stores in season. I have a half dozen of each kind.

With gear in hand, together Pete and I go around to each of the ten trees I've selected. It's a good idea to locate your maple trees in the fall or summertime while they are still in leaf. Tree identification in the winter is possible by noting the bark, twigs, buds, and leaf bud scars, but it's tricky, especially for the inexperienced. At the first tree Pete drills a hole about waist high approximately one and a half inches deep at a slight upward angle. (You have to be careful not to drill the hole to high because as the season progresses the snow around the tree melts and your waist high hole quickly becomes shoulder height. This is one of those things that is just too head-clunking obvious, but yet it happens every year). He then hammers in the spile and I simply hang the bucket, or in this case, an empty juice can.

We start up in the woods at the back edge of the property, and finish out by the road. There, the two red maples are bathed in sunlight, and even at this early hour they are already starting to run. The sap comes out in clear watery drops and makes a nice little plunk as it hits the bottom of the tin can.

March 14th RED MAPLES vs. SUGAR MAPLES
All of the trees, both the sugar maples and red maples, are running fairly well today as the temperature rises back up into the mid 40's. The sugar maples (Acer saccharum) have a higher percentage of sugar content than the red maples (A. rubrum) and therefore take less sap to produce an equal amount of syrup. For this reason it is preferable to tap only the sugar maples. But in our two and a half acres of forest, we have only five sugar maples large enough to tap, as opposed to a dozen or so large red maples. A tree needs to be at least ten inches in diameter in order to be tappable, and additional taps can be added for each additional six inches in diameter. A tree two feet in diameter, therefore, could feasibly have three taps.

The two different species can be easily distinguished by examining the leaves. Leaves of both species have the same distinctive five-lobed leaf displayed in bright red on the Canadian flag (as well as on Molson beer caps). The edges or margins of the sugar maple leaves are smooth or entire, whereas the leaf margins of the red maple are roughly serrated. The structure of their twigs, flowers, seeds, and bark is also slightly different, but these differences are less obvious.

When the sap is running well, I need to go around every three or four hours to empty the cans. The sap I store in large five gallon buckets outside until I have enough to begin boiling. I have so far collected only three gallons. Seeing that it takes upwards of forty gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup, we have a long way to go.

March 16th FIRE & ICE
Over the past three days I have managed to store up about ten gallons of sap, so it's time to begin the boiling process. Maple sap in its natural state (unboiled) is perishable. In warm weather it may begin to go sour within a few days. A cloudy, as opposed to clear, appearance indicates that it is beginning to sour. In colder weather, if the sap is kept outside, it may keep for up to a week. In fact on very cold nights, such as we have been having, it will form a layer of ice on the top, sides and bottom of its storage bucket. Since water freezes at a higher temperature than sugar does, I can pour off the sap into another bucket and discard the remaining "lampshade" of ice. These lampshades make elegant ice sculptures when set about the yard on the snowbanks. In effect this serves to concentrate the sap, and after a few days of repeating this process, you can actually see and taste the difference in the sap. It begins to become a slight golden color and has a decidedly maple flavor. Theoretically you could freeze all of the water out right down to syrup, but at some point it is quicker to just boil it.

I boil the sap outdoors on the fireplace in a six inch deep stainless steel pan that measures twelve by eighteen inches long; the kind of pan you find in restaurant supply stores for use on steam tables or buffets. Professional evaporating pans which measure quite a bit larger are available for this purpose, but for my purposes this one does just fine.

I place the pan on the fireplace grate, making sure that it is perfectly level, fill it to about one inch deep with sap (about one gallon), and build a fire underneath it. As it begins to boil and the steam begins to rise, the level of liquid in the pan naturally goes down. I add more sap little bits at a time to keep the level at least an inch deep. Not enough sap and you run the risk of burning it; too much and it won't boil. Likewise, the fire needs to be constantly tended and refueled, and as the sap thickens, the scum which forms on top needs to be skimmed off.

After a couple of hours I begin to see the clear sap turning a faint golden amber. So far I have only boiled down a few gallons, but by the subtle color change and sweet maple aroma I am reassured that syrup is on the way.

March 21st FIRST DAY OF SPRING
The weather has continued pleasant and sunny, with warm days and cold nights, and while I have stayed busy collecting and boiling sap, someone else has been stirring too. The chipmunks came out today all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, two of them running like madmen between the shed, the lodge, the fireplace, and back to the shed again. They must have calendars in their underground winter hideouts, for they are right on schedule. Or perhaps they can sense the thaw, feel the softening of the ground, or maybe their ceilings have started to leak.

Not only the chipmunks, but the insects, too, have started to stir. A few lazy flies buzz around in the sunshine; premature mosquitoes brandish their little stingers about; and tiny spiders stealthily crawl out of the cracks and crevices.

I even saw a deer in the yard, although I don't know exactly what that has to do with the first day of spring. At any rate it was a big one, and I'm sure I was the more startled of the two of us. She, however, was the one to make the first move. She turned and bolted before I got a chance to collect my wits or even say hello. And you know that little white tail you hear about, is not so little. In fact it's over a foot long and sticks straight up. I was that close.

March 22nd SLUSH BUCKETS
Our good weather abruptly changed overnight. It rained, snowed, sleeted, and slushed all night long. By all accounts it was downright miserable.

The trees, however, seemed to be enjoying this little slush storm, for the maple sap continued to run all night long. The uncovered tin cans filled up not only with sap, but with six inches of slush. These, I dumped, as it's quite simply a waste of time and fuel to boil rainwater. Lids would have been handy here.

All was not lost though, because the four trees which I had tapped with the plastic spiles, from which I extended short lengths of plastic tubing directing the sap into plastic gallon milk jugs, were by contrast fine and nearly filled with pure clean, clear sap.