Last week I decided to tap the maple trees on the farm. With the help of our dear friend, Paul, I drilled into the trees, placed a hose into the hole and then connected the hose to a 5 gallon glass jar. We looked for trees that were either dripping out sap on their own, or which had been drilled into by woodpeckers. You can see in one of the photos below that a woodpecker placed some holes into one of the trees, showing us exactly where to start!

After about 3 days (with cold nights and relatively warm days) we had 5 gallons of maple juice. I brought it home and boiled it down for about a couple hours. The maple juice to maple syrup ratio is about 40 to 1, so I yielded about 2 cups of YUMMY syrup! This is super fun! So, come visit us and I'll make you some oatmeal pumpkin pancakes with our fresh maple syrup on them.