A Day in the Sugar Bush | Foxfire Fiber & Designs

I've been quiet because I've been way under the weather this week. It felt good to be outdoors today working in the sugar bush with Mike and neighbors Norm, Lisa and Fred Davenport. We finally got around to tapping a maple stand that's not seen bucket nor tube line in more than a decade. The "bush" surrounds one of my hay fields. This field gives us two cuttings of hay each summer, feeds the flock during our fall grazing months and now will fill a large collection tank (we hope) with sap to take to my neighbor's sugar house each day. If the weather cooperates.

We started the day by setting a few buckets the old-fashioned way. But for the 500 foot run of trees we used the modern method of setting a 3/4" main line tube and running a series of smaller tap lines into the main line. I lost track of the number of trees and total number of taps. Mike and I are newcomers to all of this and we learned tons from Norm who's family owns and operates Davenport's Maple Farm (no website, though they do have a Facebook page). There's a great restaurant in the sugar house, open on weekends during sugar season. You have to get there early to beat the lines, but it's worth it for the pancakes, syrup and a spectacular view of the valley.

By day's end, the main line ran a total of 800' from the far corner (upper left of the pic below), down the run of sugar trees and then eastward following the pasture fence line to run into the collection tank. The beauty of the system is that gravity does all the work now that the lines are set. We won't have to drive on the hay field to collect buckets from tree to tree – really important now that the ground is softening up, No ruts in the hay field!

I was a little late for evening chores by the time we gathered the equipment from the field. A horde of hungry hoggets greeted me at the gate.