This One's for Us

Because we don't do enough things (yes, that's facetious tone right there), Eric came up with the admittedly awesome idea that we should make maple syrup too!  So he ordered a set of 10 taps, and we gathered all the plastic gallon bottles we could find, and this weekend before the Superbowl, we found five trees in our front and back yards that were viable to tap.  They've got to be at least 12" in diameter for a single tap, and over 18" in diameter for two.  One of the trees fit the bill for two taps, so we got to use six of them!

We were completely unprepared for (and amazed by!) how quickly the sap started to flow and how fast it came.  We put in the taps just yesterday, and we'll likely have 10 gallons of sap by tonight!  Of course, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of actual maple syrup once it's boiled down, but at this rate, we'll have that before the week's out!  We were figuring 1-2 gallons would come from the whole 6-week season, but it looks like we'll have more like 5 or 6, which is awesome.

These won't be for sale in the shop, though, these are just for us and gifts for friends.  After all, who wouldn't love 100% pure New Jersey maple syrup?