Collecting Maple Sap (In Authentic Snow!)

I love those pictures you see of folks collecting the maple tree sap in the New England area. There is always a big snow covering the ground, sometimes with drifts! Well, we don’t get that much snow very often here in eastern Kentucky, but we got a surprise inch or two yesterday. I had been planning for several days on hanging our buckets on our maple trees today, mainly because of the predicted temperature being in the 40s for highs. Last night it was about 25 degrees and we had gotten down into the teens before that. A nice warm day like today should get the sap to start flowing again.

After we got the snow yesterday, I was even more excited about hanging the buckets. It would feel so much more “authentic” to go trapsing through some snow covered woods to obtain the maple sap! We didn’t go up to the sugar bush until about 10:00am. The golden sun was shining and the temperature was starting to peek above 30 degrees. The snow, however, remained a still, white blanket covering the forest, making the scenery around us sparkle in the sun. The Lord also painted the most beautiful blue sky you can imagine, to contrast the glaring white of the snow. No Norman Rockwell painting ever looked this peaceful.

The pictures we took can’t do the reality any justice, but I was happy to take them anyway. I loved the thought of collecting maple sap with snow on the ground! I had two very good helpers with me on this fine Valentine’s Day adventure.

Here is Christina next to one of the trees:



And here is Matthew:



Christina took this picture of a frozen spout with snow on it before Matthew and I got up there:



Here is shot of Matthew and Christina from a distance:



I really like this picture. I thought it was artistic, with the fallen tree in the foreground covered with snow and the blue sky in the background above the ridge. The beautiful girl in the middle of the picture with the sap bucket makes it even better!



Speaking of that beautiful girl, when Christina got thirsty, she decided to eat some of the snow!



But you better be careful walking on steep hillsides in the snow! Matthew, Christina, and I each slipped and fell at least once as we climbed up and down the slick slopes. Christina got up too quickly for me to get a picture, but here she is in a good re-dramatization of her fall:



Our dogs usually come up with us whenever we go up in the mountains. Luna was there, with Chief and Mammoo, but I did not get a picture of her today. Here is one of Chief and Mammoo with Matthew:



And how about one more shot of the dogs. You can see a bit more of what the snow covered woods looked like in the background:



The sap flow was not very strong after all, today. The temperature did not get much above freezing until pretty late in the day. It did peak out at 48 degrees about 4:00pm and that was when most of the sap we collected probably flowed. There were still patches of snow all around when we gathered almost 2 gallons of sap at 6:00pm. The trees were all dripping, but nothing like they were on the 2nd and 3rd of February when we collected about 40 gallons. The sap may continue to flow through the night because it is not supposed to get below freezing, so we may be able to make more syrup tomorrow. Tonight we could only make about 6 ounces of syrup.

Along with the syrup, I also made some maple candy and maple sugar tonight, in celebration of Valentine’s Day. I am going to put those few pictures on my next post.

I am thankful for so much on this Valentine’s Day. I am thankful for the maple trees and for the snow, but I am mostly thankful for the love of the one who created them both and did so much more. God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to die (and raise from the dead) so that our sins that were scarlet could be made white as snow! There is nothing so sweet as that!