Today is the first day of spring. It arrived at 7:02 this
morning EDT. Yippee! I’m ready as I am sure most of us are ready to let the
vestiges of winder dwindle as the temperature rises.
It’s still cold here. Yesterday we got about six inches of
wet snow, but spring is coming. I haven’t seen the Crocuses’ yet, but a seeping
spring in my lower meadow is greening with watercress.
Another sign of spring here in the northeast is the tapping
of the sugar maple trees and collecting buckets of sap to boil down to maple
syrup and sugar.
In my region they use the traditional method of drilling a
couple of holes in the tree bark and inserting a spigot draining into a bucket
or some sap collectors insert a couple of taps in a tree and have the sap drain
into tubing collecting into a barrel like container.
The rule of thumb is the rule of 86. Divide 86 by the sugar
content. If you have 2% sugar, 86 divided by 2 is 43, so it will take 43
gallons of sap to equal one gallon of syrup.
The other day some tree trimmers cut some maple branches and
the sap started to drain where they made their cuts. Over night it drained and
froze and you can see the result.
By the way, the native peoples of the northeast made maple
syrup and sugar long before the European settlers came to these shores.
The pancakes are ready. See you!
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