By Kailey Mentink
I was hard pressed to believe what was happening as I stepped outside on Monday morning. The sun was shining, and there wasn’t a cloud in that sky. And it was warm. Wonderfully warm. And just three days before, the thermometer had barely climbed to twenty degrees. Unbelievable.
I think the whole family felt the change, because for the last several days, we’ve practically been living outside. We’ve been getting some projects done around the farm, as well as getting around to some fun activities that just aren’t as fun in the cold. I saddled up the horses and gave the younger kids rides one day. On another, we sat out in front of the house to eat lunch. In fact, it was so nice that four-year-old Abby had the idea of running through the sprinkler… but Mom said it was a bit early for that.
Another exciting thing that we got to do this week was tap maple trees. Just a couple miles down the road, Grandpa has about twenty maple trees (amongst many other trees) that he kindly allowed us to collect sap from. On Saturday, Mom, Dad, and a few of the other kids drove down there and put the taps in the trees. The weather has to be just right for the sap to flow well – freezing overnight and above freezing during the day. Some days the sap flows better than others, and sometimes one tree gives a lot while another has none!
Still, as of now we’ve already collected almost 100 gallons of sap. That sap gets boiled down to make maple syrup. I find it interesting just how much water gets boiled off to make so little maple syrup. It takes 40 gallons of sugar maple sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, but with silver maples it actually takes 44 gallons of sap. That means we are left with 1 gallon of syrup from 44 gallons of sap. Wow!
Dad rigged up a system that separates some of the water off from the sap before the boiling so that the mixture doesn’t have to get heated for so long. Making maple syrup really is a deep process. And just who came up with the idea of extracting liquid out of a tree and boiling it down into the stuff we spread on our pancakes? Just makes a girl wonder.
Even though we’ve already hit the month of March, it’s hard to believe that spring is just around the corner already! Soon we’ll be busy with the garden – actually, Mom has already started seeds, so technically that’s already begun.
Soon there will be lambs being born and baby chicks arriving; and busy will turn into a whole new form of busy. But it’s a good time of year – a time of new life and fresh growth. So welcome, spring!