Backyard Sugarin'

Or front yard sugarin', in our case.

My dear husband has decided that we should tap the maple trees in our front yard this year and make our own maple syrup.  For some reason, I was under the impression that you need six good sized trees to make syrup in any quantity, but my husband got hold of Noel Perrin's book Third Person Rural last weekend at the used book store and he says we can get a quart a tree.  Imagine that -- a whole gallon of our very own maple syrup!

Sounds like the perfect homeschool project, right?  Outside in the cold with Dad, hauling buckets of sap to the fire in the backyard, maybe sucking on a little maple ice while you watch the fire...  We can read Miracles on Maple Hill and Sugaring Time and feel like Almanzo Wilder in Farmer Boy.  It might even be the perfect hands on unit.

Except that my dear husband conveniently neglected to remember that he has a bunch of business trips in March, so when he says we are going to make maple syrup, what that really means is, "Honey, I'm going to be at work every day and in Phoenix for part of the month, so it's going to be up to you to check and haul all these buckets and keep the fire going, all right?  I'm sure the babies will cooperate."

Well, anyway, he's reading Backyard Sugarin' and Making Maple Syrup: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-51 and we're waiting for the imminent arrival of the Nearings' The Maple Sugar Book.  The local Agway sells taps, buckets, and lines.  (Last March we had been gone for a few weeks, and when we came back, the woods were strung with green rubber tubing.  "What the heck is that?" we all wanted to know, until it occurred to us -- sap!  Maple syrup!)  So I suppose we will be stocking up, and Mom will try to get motivated.  (I could use a pep talk here, in case anyone is interested.  The idea of making maple syrup sounds real interesting, but the logistics of trying to keep everyone out of the buckets and away from a fire while gallons of sap boil away to syrup is... well, a little daunting.) 

The first thing we'll have to do, though, is identify our trees.  I wish I had thought to press a few leaves in the fall, but all I have are the pictures I took. 

They're not red maples, because they didn't turn scarlet in the fall.  But are they Norway maples, silver maples, or sugar maples?  That is the question...

Comments

[Jennifer]

What a project! I'll be watching you closely come March - wow!

[Cheryl]

Wow! You have an ambitious husband. (I do too.) Like you, I think I would be concerned about what to do with the littles ones during the process. It should be really fun for the older ones though. Please post about how it goes.

[Grace]

Oh, we love maple sugar time. We don't actually have any maple trees ourselves, but have read about it in the Little House books and other places. Our homeschool group also visited a farm where the kids got to help make maple syrup a couple of years ago. Oh, how I wish we lived in the country! I hope all goes well with your maple sugaring project.

God Bless,
Grace

[Jennifer]

I want to come over! What a wonderful opportunity. Your younger children could read the Little House picture book, "Sugar Snow". Please post lots of photos on this - how exciting.

[Chris]

Actually, red maples get their name from the stem as it turns red in the winter cold. All maples, save the Norway group, will turn Orange/Red to some degree in the Fall as long as there is sufficient seasonal flux in the weather. Thought you'd like to know. For a great tree book, try the Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, Michael A. Dirr. The fifth edition is probably the most accurate. You should be able to identify a sugar maple by the bark and, by now, the leaf.