In the woods

Maple folks say “money is made in the woods”…

What that means is the most important part of maple syrup process is getting great quality sap from the woods. This means healthy happy trees, well designed tubing collections systems, and lots of upkeep finding leaks and problems (falling branches+angry squirrels=problems). As for the making money part… hopefully some day!

For every hour spent at the evaporator, I’m guessing there are 20+ hrs of work in the woods. In the off season a big focus is forestry work and installing and maintaining tubing collections systems.

Here are my maple helpers moving tubing

This leased woods is foot access only, with no trails and super steep hills. We carried 15 miles of tubing by hand during the install!

Tying mainline

Everyone helps on the installs, especially when we have deadlines.

Our new German Shepard puppy Chip joined the crew as a 4 month old. We jokingly started training him to find leaks in tubing by ear, but now we think it might actually work. He goes hard…..

Chip the Maple Puppy

…and takes naps as needed. In January I lost track of him which is highly unusual, when he didn’t come I searched and found him curled up sleeping next to our starting point that day.

In one of our woods we use a “natural vacuum” tubing collection system, this relies on using a smaller tubing for laterals that stays full of fluid, just like a drinking straw. Gravity acting on the fluid reduces the air pressure at the tap hole and allows more sap flow. This system is on a seasonal road with no electricity and lots of gradient (crazy steep), so it is a good application.

In our other woods we use an electric vacuum pump to lower the air pressure in our tubing system. The sap and air flow though a releaser, which allows us to get the sap out of the system while still maintaining vacuum.