Tapping in to southern Aroostook sugarbush operations

I used to think that picking fiddleheads was the first real harvest of something fresh after a long winter but have changed my mind and now consider “sap running time” to be the first edible of spring. It’s a time I look forward to each year and it’s a time I’m also happy to be done with, knowing that I’ll be enjoying the sweet syrup for the entire next year.
We are fortunate to have a few larger sugarbush operations in southern Aroostook enabling us to buy maple syrup locally, but there are also many backyard hobbyists who do it for a variety of reasons: self-sufficiency, fun, because they’ve gotten a bit obsessive with it … you name it.
One such self-proclaimed obsessive is Steve Hopkins in Hodgdon. Steve keeps meticulous records of yearly sap production and is generally the first person I know to tap and finishes only when “it’s not fun anymore.” I happened to see him the day after he tapped his 80 trees this year and he said, “Don’t you just love the song the sap sings when it hits the pail?” When he found out I used plastic buckets, he dismissed them as not being able to produce such pleasing notes as metal. Either way, it is a nice sound to hear when you put a spile in a tree and the sap immediately starts flowing.
With more than adequate snow cover, it appeared that sap production for 2014 would be a banner year. However, warmer days did not give way to the cold nights needed for good sap flow and I’ve had many conversations with other hobbyists who have been perplexed by the skimpy sap runs.
One such conversation happened at Houlton High School’s sugar house with outdoor education teacher Todd Willard. Todd and students were busy boiling the approximately 150 gallons of sap down the day I visited, which happens to be the only day they were boiling. The 40 maple trees had been tapped for about a month and they didn’t get the production they had hoped for. Regardless, students were busy using a pulley system to raise buckets of stored sap up to a second floor holding container that gravity fed sap into a Leader Evaporator 2×4 sap pan with steam billowing up into the clear sky. With the new evaporator, the class can boil about 35 gallons of sap down in an hour.
Most people I know are not as fortunate to have such efficient systems, making day-long boiling over wood fires a part of the syrup production process. Allen Moody, now passed, loved spending late winter days boiling sap down in his shed and did so until his last year of life. Allen was also the person to bring his sap collecting containers to church to demonstrate to me his method, which I’ve adopted. I think of him every year when we put our taps in.
I’ll end with a burgeoning obsessive. Paul MacIlroy of New Limerick tapped 10 trees 30 years ago when his kids were little. After a couple decades’ hiatus and a request by his granddaughter, he began again a few years ago. He now taps about 120 trees, spending four hours on snowshoes collecting the sap and his Saturdays boiling it down. A newly constructed shed houses an evaporator and serves as storage. He noted that it’s hard work but it’s good “just to get outdoors” – a perfect way to express the sentiment of all backyard syrup producers.
Angie Wotton loves her work as district manager for the Southern Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District. She also raises pastured pork and vegetables with her husband on their small West Berry Farm in Hammond. She can be reached 532-9407 or via email at angela.wotton@me.nacdnet.net.