but we wanted the buckets in place for Tuesday’s thaw which will likely be accompanied with good flow. Esther never shies away from long hours. We had previously broken the trails between the trees with snowshoes which made a world of a difference.
Here I was, patting myself on the back for all the experience acquired over 7 sugaring seasons. This 8th one though, I’ve made several costly mistakes. A filtering snafu, sap overflow, woodpiles allowed to get wet, and more importantly, I misread the weather and let the pan full of syrup spoil. I thought it had been cold enough but it hadn’t and I let it sit too long. I could smell it right away when I started boiling. It didn’t smell bad but it was lacking the sweetness and you could tell something was off.
So that’s it, an anticlimactic end to a very decent season otherwise. It’s not worth rebuilding up the pan with the sap about to turn. And it’s ok really, we still made enough, and I’m actually enthused to get going again next year with a list of many things I want to improve, which I’ll implement until then.
Still though it’s a bit of a shame to waste all this effort. If nothing else, it’s good exercise out in the woods, and it’ll make a nutrient dense addition to a pile of compost. It’s always good to remind myself that I used to go to a gym and exert myself into the void. Moving 200 gallons of sap from the forest to a compost pile achieved something at least, on top of being a good workout.
We received a monster snow storm that made bucket harvesting a snowshoe ordeal. Esther loved creating little paths between the buckets.
One of the maple taps wasn’t producing much at all, so I moved it to a birch tree. I had tried before but was too late and didn’t really get anything. This time though, the sap was flowing and so I got about a gallon that I boiled on the stove inside.
And it was really delicious. Much like maple syrup but with more of a floral tone. Maple syrup takes ~40 gallons of sap to get 1 gallon of syrup, a 40:1 ratio on average. Birch syrup is 100:1! That explains why it’s not common. I’m definitely curious about it though. In one season, we make enough Maple syrup for our family’s generous use for a good 2 years. Maybe I could do Birch every other year. It’s the same process with the same tools, just more water boiled out.