Maple Syrup time

The sap from the Sugar Maple trees has started to flow. I think it really started about a week ago but we could not get to the trees because of all the ice and snow. The sun did come out and melt the snow so now we are in full production of collecting the sap from the trees and then cooking it off in our evaporator. We got the evaporator last year. It was a big job building the fire box with fire brick to make it burn hot. It was also not a good year for collecting sap so between the two endeavors we didn't succeed in getting any Maple Syrup. THIS YEAR will be different. We were ready with the buckets and taps. We got a new tarp for the 'Sugar Shack' (the winter was hard on tarps this year). And yesterday we had 25 gallons of sap collected so Bruce filled the upper chamber with the sap and started the fire and we are now cooking the sap down to Maple Syrup. The evaporator cooks it down to almost finished and then it needs to be filtered and cooked on the stove to finish it off. So hopefully we will get some Maple Syrup. The ratio of sap collected to amount of finished syrup is approximately 43 gallons of sap for 1 gallon of syrup. So at this point we have hopes of 1/2 gallon of syrup. We will see. In the picture Bruce is showing Z about building a fire in the lower fire box and how it heats up the stainless steel box which holds the syrup. Have to wait a few years before Z can run the evaporator.