Yooper Brother Mark is getting ready to tap one of our sugar maples early Saturday afternoon

March 14, 2021 - Sunday morning

24 degrees/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

I was about to get on the four wheeler and head to the woods around noon on Saturday when Sheri and Yooper Brother Mark pulled into the drive. With boots in hand, both exited their truck asking what they could do to help.

What a pleasant surprise. Sargie was still finishing some last minute chores and said she'd catch up with me in short order.

Since tapping is primarily a two person job, Sheri went on to the house while Mark and I left for the woods.

Earlier in the day, I'd washed 110 taps, all of Civil War and late 1800's vintage.

I wish my taps (officially called spiles) could talk. Most would tell stories of days long ago in either northern Maine or Quebec, when making maple syrup was done just like we do it now, by hand.

Earlier, Sargie and I made a run to town. I needed one more fitting for the evaporator and wanted everything working before the whole process began. While at the hardware store, I was greeted by half a million Brownie Scouts, all pleading for the chance to sell me a box of cookies.

I've always been a sucker for pretty, extremely polite, young ladies and later, walked out of the store with my pipe fittings AND a couple of boxes of cookies. 

Later in the morning and in the woods:

After a quick lesson in drilling, how to insert and pound the tap, and bag tying, Mark and I got busy. With most the trees, he'd barely remove the drill bit before sap would come pouring out, often in a stream.

We'd finished placing forty taps in the south woods and were starting on those trees to the north when Sheri and Sargie arrived to help.

It wasn't long before my role became that of selecting which trees to tap, handing out bags and precut twine, and watching everyone else do the difficult tasks. I felt like Tom Sawyer must have after talking Huckleberry Finn into white washing the fence.

With drilling and tapping finished, we retired to the house. Sargie suggested we go out to eat, but first, Mark and I headed back out to the woods for the first sap collection of the year. It's a good thing we did. In just two to three hours, many of the bags were full to bursting and we collected an unheard of 35 gallons from 100 taps in that short while.

The four of us laughed so hard last night and enjoyed our pizzas. Ah, a day in the woods, lots of fresh air and sunshine, our bellies full, and great company. Can life get any better?

We just roared Saturday evening. A practical joker, Mark was giving Sheri a hard time about something and she was giving it right back. It appears he might have been winning this particular round.

Sleep came quickly last night. Today will begin a pattern that should repeat itself for the next week to ten days. Fire up the boiler first thing in the morning, collect sap around noon, continue boiling, make a late afternoon collection of sap, shut the fire down just before bedtime. If the weather cooperates, we could achieve our goal, that of making ten gallons of syrup, by the end of next weekend. If not, the season could stretch on into late March and even early April. It all depends on the weather.

Time to get this uploaded and take a walk. I need to wash the evaporator pan today and make it ready to start boiling. I won't begin until we have at least a hundred gallons of sap collected, but the way it was flowing yesterday, that could be sooner rather than later.

Hmm, a hundred gallons of sap equals two and a half gallons of syrup. 

Let's do it!

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...