For those who still picture sap running into buckets and then being hauled off by horse-drawn sled, I have an update. These days the sap is collected and transported in small blue tubing.
As this little nine second video clips shows, the sap runs pretty fast.
See on YouTube
The tubing crisscrosses all through the bush ...
... and eventually into wider-diameter black tubes ...
... and is pumped up the building where it is processed into maple syrup.
The processing shed is to the left and the dining room to the right. Last year, I took pictures of the processing but didn't get around to blogging about it. Perhaps next year. As I showed yesterday, products can be bought in the dining room. They charge $17.50 for a quart of syrup, so I chose not to purchase any on the weekend. But it's not far, and I now have an excuse to go back before they close the place until next March.
Oh how interesting AC, I had no idea that is how they did it, very clever!
ReplyDeleteLove Di ♥
Went on a school field trip with the boys to a syrup collecting and processing farm a few years ago. Very interesting! Thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteGood Gravy, those poor trees look like zombies with all that tubing running around...or cybot trees...part machine, part plant...
ReplyDeleteI would have had to pass on $17.50 syrup, too...
Well, they don't have far to go do they?! Great stuff!
ReplyDeletehughugs
I love maple syrup. Just this past week my husband was on a fasting diet. For the last 3 days he could only drink water with lemon juice and maple syrup. We went to the store looking for Grade B and were amazed at the pricing. We ended up buying some Grade B for about $12. This morning I put some on my oatmeal and could really taste the difference from the usual Grade A that I purchase.
ReplyDeleteYou don't want to trip over all those lines!
ReplyDeleteWe have those blue lines in our local sugar bushes and they don't have the character of buckets on trees. I do understand that the sap is cleaner and much easier to collect. The big Elmira syrup festival is the last weekend in March. We buy a case of maple syrup every year which contains 8-19 oz tins.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right, AC...this is entirely different from the old "sugaring off" days. You have inspired me to write a blog entry about my grandparents in Brattleboro, Vermont who tapped the maples every year and made syrup and candy...this was back in the 1940's.
ReplyDeleteAhhh, maple syrup and snow - two things I am missing!!!
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