Today is
the first day of spring. It arrived today. I am sure most of us are ready to
let the vestiges of winter dwindle as the temperature rises.
It’s
still cold here, 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. Usually
the sap collection is done by now, but because of the cold it has just started.
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.
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