First Gather

Early Thursday afternoon we checked the sap buckets and most of them were nearly full. Time to gather!

Our holding tanks are plastic storage bins (with lids) set on a wagon that can be stored in the cold garage until we're ready to boil. Each bin holds 68.1 litres.

We waded through deep wet snow and emptied the sap buckets into a pail. Two sap buckets filled 1 pail.

Each time we emptied 2 sap buckets, we had to wade through the wet snow with the full pail to pour the collected sap into a holding tank that was sitting on the wagon on the laneway.

We estimate we gathered about 38 litres.  It takes 40 litres of sap to make 1 litre of syrup.  It was too late in the day to start boiling even though the thought crossed our minds. We're saving that task for the weekend.

Years ago when the kids were little we used to help an uncle collect sap at his Sugar Bush. He had a tractor pulling a wagon with a huge holding tank and we would ride along with the tank.