Posted on 02/25/2015 4:42:03 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
NEW CARLISLE Tree tapping season is officially underway in St. Joseph County. Staff at Bendix Woods County Park has already welcomed dozens for the first seasonal event.
While tapping has started, sap isn't flowing quite yet. The substance needs above freezing temperatures to flow.
"This is the only time of year you can actually tap trees, so that's what makes this time of year so unique for making maple syrup," said Interpretive Services Manager, Leslie Witkowski.
The season is short. It takes place between mid-February and March, but during that time, staff will see dozens of school groups. Parks staff says the field trips are a great educational experience.
"So many kids are just associating food with grocery stores. They don't necessarily know food comes from nature," said Witkowski.
Another surprising fact is that sap is 97% water and only 2-3% sugar, so when it comes from the tree it doesn't look like the thick syrup someone may be used to on pancakes.
"It looks like water," said Amal Farrough, a park interpreter. "After the trees are tapped, we take the sap and we take it to the sugar house, and it's cooked and all the water evaporates up out of it.”
Most trees at Bendix Woods can handle 1-2 taps. Each tree pumps out about 10 gallons of sap per tap, and it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.
There are several public tapping events in March, all leading up to the season finale. Sugar Camp Days are going on March 21-22. For a full list of events, click here.
Oh...that’s what they mean here by ‘tree tapping’. Whew!
Man: Do you mind if I tap your-
Interrupting liberal woman: Pervert!
Cool, Studebaker Syrup.
AH! Remember well the tapping of maple trees in upstate NY in the 40’s and 50’s AND who could forget the gathering of the pails off the trees, dumping them in milk cans in a wagon drawn by the work horses? It was bitter cold gathering the sap and it had to be done before the school bus came. We (kids) thought our mother delighted in hollering up the stairs to wake us up to get dressed to get outside to gather the sap because it was a “beautiful run”. I think she had a sadistic streak in her...LOL
I wasn’t old enough to tend the fire and boiling the sap in the sap house but found it an amazing process. That was left to my father and brother and sometimes my mother. If I recall correctly, it had to be attended 24 hours or it might burn. Long, long separated vats over wood fire so I guess the sap was poured in the vats according to how long it had been on the fire and new sap went in different sections.
Loved the maple sugar candy that my mother made and of course, the REAL maple syrup..
That's for the sugar maple.
I have a couple of Red Maples in my front yard.
It still works, but the ratio is about 60:1.
Loved Roger Miller.....I still play his songs!!!!!!
The trouble is, I have about three feet of global warming on the ground.
Makes it hard to get TO the trees.
Thanks for that descriptive memory! I grew up in TX, so we never had the fun of tapping maple trees for that delectable REAL maple syrup.
Tree tapping? Wait a minute. Where is Bill Clinton?
This weekend we will set the taps and buckets out, but it is still so cold in Western Pa that I don't expect much for a while. Reds and silvers on our property, we are about 55 to one for yield. Time for spring.
Tree tapping? Is that what you young people are calling it these days? (giggle, giggle)
I thought it said tree trapping and I thought, that sounds pretty easy!
And I can smell the wood smoke and maple syrup from my childhood helping the gathering and boiling down, just by talking about it. Good days.
One of the folks I helped also continued the process on the stove until it was such sugar, that when cooled it would be solid. They filled small molds to make maple candy. It was incredible.
A friend of mine’s son has a small commercial Maple syrup operation that has gone the high tech route with a plastic tubing network instead of the traditional bucket method
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