We may have started the day in the double digits, but the wind was blowing cold when our first school group arrived for the 2011 sugaring season.


Most of this group was kids from France.  Teaching maple sugaring to teens who don't have a lot of English can be a challenge, even with interpreters on hand.  But our wonderful crew of volunteers sallied forth undeterred, giving these kids the benefits of their knowledge about this wholly American subject.




Although it was balmy and mild when we tapped the trees, every day since it has been quite cold.  So cold, in fact, that not only was the water in the buckets frozen, but so was the sap.  We scraped up some of the ice for the kids to taste - sort of like a sweet slushy eaten with fingers.


The bags were bulging with the weight of ice.  Fortunately, the bags are made from some pretty tough plastic, so they can take the stress.


In all the years I've done sugaring, this is the first time I've ever seen anyone plug the tapping holes after the season ends.  They use short lengths of wooden dowels, just long enough to fill the hole.  The tree then grows around them and seals them in.  Interesting.


We were all quite glad to reach the sugar shack itself.  Although the sun is shining, the wind and air were bitingly cold.


And here is why the shack was the place to be:  they'd chopped wood and built a fire for the evaporator.


We'd only actually collected about eight gallons of sap by now, so there wasn't a whole lot in the evaporator.  Here John demonstrates one of the ways the sap is tested for "doneness."


Everyone got a squirt of syrup (made last year) to taste.  Most of these kids have never had the real thing - maple sugar and syrup are not products of France.



Here are a couple views at the sugar shack:




After the group left, lunch time found us once more ensconced at The Window, watching a fox squirrel this time around.

 With the temps in the 50s these last two days, we knew that sugaring season was here.  That, plus the fact that the month of March is when The Dahlem Center does it's maple sugaring programs for school groups.  So, with eager anticipation, today was the annual training o' the volunteers.

Volunteers are vital to the successful operation of our maple sugaring program.  Several stations are set up around the property, each highlighting a portion of the history of sugaring, the collection of sap, or the conversion of sap into liquid gold.

After an animated discussion inside of the different stations and a demonstration of all the various props we use, Carrie led the group (27 strong) out to the sugar bush.

Da Boyz had preceded us and set the buckets out. 

 
Using the good old-fashioned hand drill (I love these tools!), holes are drilled, slightly upwards, about two inches into the trunk of the tree.


The spile is hammered in and the bucket hung.

 
A cover is placed over the top to keep the deer from snacking too much, and to keep the majority of the rain and snow from diluting the precious sap.


We also demonstrate the use of plastic bags in lieu of buckets, as well as the ever popular tubing, which pipes the sap directly to large holding containers.

At the sugar shack, one wants to have a good supply of wood on hand to feed the voracious fire that heats the evaporator, which magically transforms the watery sap into thick, sticky, sweet syrup.


Our evaporator is a small unit, so it doesn't need anywhere near as much wood as the big commercial operations do.


It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.  If you are using sugar maple, that is.  If you tap Norway maples (which, by the way, are an invasive species, and even though they make a pretty decent syrup, they are invasives and should be cut down), you will need closer to 60 gallons of sap - the sap has a much lower sugar content than that of the sugar maple.


One should always have ones eyes open, however, for whatever other goodies nature may bring your way...even if you are in a training workshop.

One of our volunteers brought me this cocoon, plucked from the wall of the sugar shack.


The maker of the cocoon never pupated, though.  When I turned it over, its dessicated carcass lay all stiff and dry inside.  Pupae actually need a fair bit of  humidity in order to survive.  Either the humidity was wrong, or something else got to this larva before it had a chance to change.  If there are any moth experts out there, I'd love an opinion as to which species this might be.


 A truly wonderful find, however, was what you see below: the seed husk in Paul's hand, the leaf in Libby's.


Yes, Virginia, it is an American Chestnut!  A real, genuine American Chestnut!  We have this one specimen that popped up and a couple years ago they found these nut husks on the ground - a rare occurrence these days.  Gary said that the tree didn't produce any nuts this last fall, so these husks (we found two) must've been from 2009.   The nuts are long gone, but the very prickly husks remain.  I brought this one inside to add to our collection of goodies to share with the public.


So, if you are in the Jackson area, you might want to keep yourself available next month to come out to our Maple Sugar Festival on Saturday, 19 March.  Although most of the month we do our sugaring program just for school groups, we do set this one afternoon aside so families and folks without families can come and learn how maple syrup is made.  And who knows...maybe you'll get a chance to see an American chestnut, too.

I find myself very jealous these days of those who are living a bit further south! Although we had a glorious day Saturday (must've hit 60*F), we are back to rain/ice/snow today. After all, it is still March!

None-the-less, signs of spring abound. For example, it is sugaring time here in the North Country! I went out Saturday on the Lake Placid Loop and took in a couple different sugaring operations. The one in which I was really interested was at the Uhlien facility in Lake Placid, which is operated by Cornell. They have installed a Reverse Osmosis system, which literally sucks the sap out of the trees via vacuum. On a really good day they can get up to 800 gallons of sap an hour! When I was there they were pumping at about 400. This is then piped up to the "RO" machine, which uses reverse osmosis to pull out a lot of the water. The now super-concentrated sap is then sent to the evaporator pans, where it spends much less time than it does in a traditional sugaring outfit. They end up producing about 30 gallons of syrup an hour! And instead of it taking the usual 32-40g of sap per gallon of syrup, with the RO method they only need 6-8g of sap! It's pretty amazing.

Pictures? Of course not - I was on vacation and as we all know, I do not own a digital camera. I have some tax refund money coming, though, and it is REALLY tempting to use it for getting one!

Other signs of spring we have in Newcomb: buds on my daffodils. I'm back to work tomorrow, so I'll keep my eyes open for coltsfoot - the first flower of spring in these here parts.