Lots can – and did – happen in a week: The start of tree-tapping, a February thaw, the scrubbing of sap tanks, continued tapping, a sap run, setup of pans and equipment, and ongoing tapping. Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

Veteran tapper Larry wears a pack designed for tubing work. [LC photo]

February 5th, First Day of Tapping

“Gear explosion,” says Freedle. “Dump it out, put it back better. I do it with ski gear and camera gear.”

Dumped on the floor are beech leaves (lots), nails, hand clippers, clamps, taps, and 2″ cuts of damaged tubing, left over from an October day of tubing maintenance. He’ll need to pack another 40 lbs-worth of items before heading up the hill for the first day of tapping.

               

          Frozen windowpanes
          Coffee gurgling
          Tim’s cranberry muffins
           Four tappers in their corners, sorting and packing



“Gotta remember about The Things,” says Ingrid. “I couldn’t recall which gloves I used last year so I brought pretty much all the gloves I have.”

Chief of Operations says, “You brought your own tools! You picked up a Silky saw!” A discussion ensues about how useful that size of saw would be. “Only a branch saw,” says Chops. “Your hammer, I think you could get the job done with.”

Ingrid, like Larry, wears a leather pouch to carry the small things. [LL photo]

Ingrid brought Bulletproof coffee she’d made herself. [Find your own link.] “It’s the American way,” says Freedle. “You take a common product like coffee and put a spin on it so it’s all new. Take smash burgers.”

Larry tapes his hammer with red tape so when he inevitably drops it in the snow he’ll be able to find it. “If it were a lift gate it would be easier,” he says to Chops (Chief of Operations), referring to a carpentry project at his place.

Don’t forget the camera. [LC photo]

“You see this?” says Chops. “The taps are blue and translucent this year. They recommend changing tap color every year so you’ll notice the taps which didn’t get pulled during cleanup.”

The drills are lined up on the blue counter. Chops continues, “When you put the drill bit into the drill [do such-and-such], otherwise it will slip. I’m trying to convert everything to 6 amps. That 6-amp battery will last you all day.”

Mollusk at the base of Bertha. [LL photo]

           
          Woodstove heat melts window frost.
          Coffee aroma dissipates.
          It’s nearly noon,
          The sugarbush map lies on the blue counter, and
          Four tappers explode up the hill. 

COMING ATTRACTIONS: On Tuesday we will boil the sap we have from about 40% of the total taps. The run is over; below-freezing days return.                           
                
                

5 thoughts on “Ready or not, here it comes”

    1. Hi Clairmonde, It’s good to hear from a reader in Oregon. Most of the tools are for repairing squirrel damage. The “squirrel chew” is spotty as always, but this year it is particularly destructive in those spots (which change year to year). The tools are cleverly designed to enable a person to piece the taut lines back together by his or herself. Freedle said that one day there was so much repair work that he nearly forgot he was up in the sugarbush to tap. Of course, fixed today does not mean still fixed tomorrow. AC

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  2. Very happy to see the blog up and running again! I’ve been passing through hoping for updates recently.

    We didn’t keep anything from this past weekend, as the run didn’t really do much at low vacuum up here in the cooler temps, and we didn’t find the worst leaks in the systems we had tapped until late Saturday. I’ve also never seen such horrible slime come through the pipes, and I had to shovel my releasers out three different times over Saturday and Sunday.

    We’re back to tapping this week and should hopefully be done sometime this weekend. Hopefully we get some snow, and can have a late ski season before sugaring starts in earnest!

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    1. Dear Anonymous Ben,

      It’s good to read the first trickle of sugar season news from the backwoods of the Northeast Kingdom. We ended up making one drum of syrup after we sweetened the pans. The sap was 1.4% I think. Lew had RO problems but LaPierre promptly made a house call – impressive, I say. We’ve got Herbie and Morningside left to tap. Larry is up there today cleaning up squirrel chew in one bad area before the snow buries the lines tonight. (But oh how we do need the snow for our morale.) Travelling through the bush on the firm crust of snow was a dream until the thaw. The squirrels thought so, too.

      Carry on, and keep us in the loop. AC

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      1. Glad to hear your shakedown is out of the way, and equipment is tuned up. A couple of folks up here have also boiled, and part of me wonders about the decisions I made – a low stakes first boil is always nice.

        The walking on Saturday here was ok, until the thundershower around lunch turned our snow to 16″ of slop. It was atrocious walking the rest of the day, which continued into Sunday. But, it set up so hard that I’ve been tapping without snow shoes my last couple days out (I took Monday as a recovery day, and then the cold blowing wind on Wednesday was daunting enough to keep me to puttering around the sugarhouse).

        Our worst damage was a series of coyote chews on several mains in the deepest corner of the woods. Once those were patched, our vacuum bumped ~12″, and all of a sudden hanging drops were findable from hundreds of feet out.

        Last nights snow didn’t amount to much here, and now we’ll just have to look hopefully towards the long range – though an easy finish to tapping is a gift to run down legs……

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