Alex was very eager to start and so we put in the taps at the beginning of this month. In the first few days we got a small amount, enough to make a 1/4 cup of maple sugar, and then the temperature dropped. Finally, this past week was wonderfully warm and the sap was flowing. Unfortunately, I'm ridiculously stubborn and wanted to try judging the doneness of the syrup by look instead of being smart and getting out a thermometer. Hence the three jars above of crystallized maple goo.
It doesn't matter though, it's been a tremendously fun learning experience. In all we've collected enough maple sap to make over three pints of goo, which I think would translate to a little more syrup if I could master the last half an hour of sap boiling. Now if I can just keep the kids (and myself) out of these jars so they last a little while, I may cook with some and use the rest to make maple sugar candies or some maple candied ginger.
One of our sap buckets
Penny likes peeking
Perfect was helping too
