Every spring we look forward to gathering sap. As the family grows, even the younger kids get excited about helping out with everything that is involved in this old Vermont tradition. Grandpa Bruce has upgraded from a homemade boiler to a more modernized one, and has also just recently built a small sugarhouse. There is a lot of work involved in this process. The taps and tap lines need to be set up and run, and the buckets that we use to gather, need to be hung. You also need to be sure to have plenty of firewood on hand to keep the water boiling throughout the whole process. The fun part is gathering the sap. The kids enjoy collecting the buckets to dump into a big one, which is then taken to the big tank to be boiled down. This is the process that takes hours. Anyone that has ever done Maple Sugaring can understand why the Maple Syrup is so expensive. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of Maple Syrup!
Bradford & Ethan
Doing what boys do best!
Weston
The new sugarhouse.
Garret
Jackson
McKinnley
Gathering the sap!
Kaylee & Weston
Checking the buckets!
Emptying the pails.
Tasting it!
In the barn.
Kaylee & Weston
Kaylee
Bradford
Ethan
Helping with chores.
Bambam
Fun on the tractor.
The boiling operation.
Kyrah
Boiling the sap.
Getting warm.
Ethan & Bradford
Kaylee & Erin
Jackson
Grandpa Bruce
Uncle Mike
This is how hot you need the fire to keep the sap boiling.
The goats.
Erica & Sierra
Straining the sap.
Tasting the sap.
The containers to put the syrup in when it is finished.
Kyrah & Ginger
Liquid gold! :)
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