March Madness

My dad is expecting some strong runs over the next week. Unfortunately, I'll be in Dallas all week and won't be able to pitch in.

I participated in a different Northeast Ohio spring activity this morning - fly fishing for steelhead in the Chagrin river. I didn't catch a thing, but it was a great way to spend a couple hours.

It seems to me that spending hours upon hours boiling down slightly sweet tree sap and standing in a river when it 25 degrees our are both a bit more "mad" than watching a lot of basketball games.

Days of Sugaring Past

Not sugaring this year (unless I visit a friend or two) but I thought I would post a couple of pictures from sugaring in Cornish, NH in 2005 and 2006. With the Fitch family we tapped 50 trees or so and built a barrel boiler with stainless steel pan. We made it real easy to boil when you wanted to and to go to bed when you wanted to do that. Here is Graham checking out the gear and a second photo of sleigh rides in 2006. I think we tried collecting sap with the Fitch's horses at least once, but mostly we walked and used a truck.

Jim Fitch is going all out this year. Hopefully he will post his experiences! The weather here in Cumberland, MD suggests a short and sweet sugaring season, but my only evidence is the temperature (now staying above freezing at night pretty regularly) and the good flow coming down the few sugar maples in my woods. Graham likes to go lick the bottom of the trees. By the time the sap gets down there it has evaporated some and is usually pretty sweet. He calls them "licking trees."

Sugaring in Homeworth, OH

My dad has been tapping the old maple trees on his property in Homeworth, Ohio for a few years. Up until this year, he and my mom have been boiling down the sap over high BTU propane burners. This year, I was able to convince my dad to set up a wood burning rig.

He went all out, converting an old grain shed to a sugar shack, putting in trap doors in the ceiling to let steam out, and installing lighting. He's been playing around with the firebox design to try to keep all of the heat from going up the stack. I think he's enjoying it more than when he was using propane.

More pictures can be found here.