I'm boiling!

[Malsua]

Literally.

Today is the first Maple sap boil of our last season. We've been visiting the villages for over a decade, my sister lives there, my mom lived there before she passed. We bought 2 years ago and are finally doing full time in April so this is the last time we will ever do this.

We are coming down in April for a month, then heading north to finish and sell the NJ house. Full TV afterward.

We tap 8 trees with 13 spiles and three of them really make a lot of sap. We typically end up with about 2 gallons of syrup, most of which we give away. We never use that much in a year or two.

Still tons of snow here in NW NJ. Oh and I know I sound so enthused in the video...the wife is still asleep, trying not to wake her :)

Quick 30 second video.

Making Maple syrup by boiling sap - YouTube (https://youtu.be/WGvO3nwQP7M)

[vintageogauge]

Been there, done that, it's a lot of work and I really don't miss it. February and March in TV is much better.

[Malsua]

Been there, done that, it's a lot of work and I really don't miss it. February and March in TV is much better.

We were up for 2 weeks Christmas and New years, a week in early Feb and down again in a month.

It is a lot of work, but not doing it commercially, so it's just something fun for us.

I worked with a farm that did it commercially back in the 70s and THAT was a lot of work. They used a wood stoked evaporator that needed tending and collecting sap involved lots of trees and buckets. The smell of the steam is unique though.

[stan the man]

Been there, done that, it's a lot of work and I really don't miss it. February and March in TV is much better.

June July August September. villages done that..Green mountains for me..Never full time done thaf

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

We had sugar maples in our back yard up north. The "mama maple" was over 250 years old, the rest were here "children" (literally - this mini-grove shares its ancestry).

We didn't tap the trees but they provided amazing shade for the yard. Plus it was SO much fun raking. It's something I actually miss, about all the work that goes into home ownership up north. Raking the leaves in the fall is one of my favorite fall things to do. Hubby used a leaf-blower, I used a normal long-handled rake. We'd bring the leaves to the end of our property at the road, pile them up high, and then I'd climb into the middle of the pile and fall backward and just lay there awhile, gazing up at the sky, breathing in the fresh crisp smell of leaves and autumn. It's my favorite time of year. Or was. A "favorite season" no longer exists for me down here.

A plus side for me though, is that for the first time ever I can grow a rosemary bush without doing anything to care for it, and it just grows by itself.