We spent the day gathering wood for … well, probably the 2027 maple season, but we’ll see.
Knotty pine has really interesting cross-segments
Category: Maple Sugaring
2026 Maple Season: More Taps
We’re having another one of those days where it goes from 70F to 20F over the course of a day – so we’ve got about 10 days of sap coming up. Washed and replaced all of the existing buckets, and tapped all of the maple trees.
2026 Maple Season – Got Syrup
Almost a gallon of black walnut syrup (plus half a pint of maple syrup, from the two trees at the bottom of the driveway)
2026 Maple Season – Boiling
We are getting huge “clouds” evaporating every time the wind picks up
And the fire is toasty
2026 Maple Season – More Tappling
Anya and I finished tapping the walnut trees (and two maple trees) today.
And we had our sap helper cat!
2026 Maple Season – Black Walnut Trees Tapped
We spent the day tapping our black walnut trees – the end of the extended forecast is in the 70’s, but we should get at least a week of sap flow.
Maple Syrup – Second Boil
We had another week of overnight freezes that extended the maple season – got about 40 gallons of maple sap and 10 gallons of walnut sap. We boiled it all in a single day, and finished it this morning. We added another 3/4 of a gallon of maple syrup and a little over a pint of walnut syrup. Half of the buckets have been collected. We’ve got more buckets, taps, and ratchet straps to collect … but maple season is over for 2025.
Maple Syrup and Black Walnut Syrup – First Batch
We finished boiling the sap today — three gallons of maple syrup and about half a gallon of black walnut syrup.
Still collecting sap
Boiling
We’ve got 38 maple trees (48 taps) and 10 black walnut trees (12 taps) – the first collection was 38 gallons of maple sap and 16 gallons of black walnut sap.