slow return to my roots

[ohiosam]

Started in 2021 with 5 taps, 30 taps in 2022, 80 taps this year. Taking the sap to a neighbor to boil, not ready to take the leap of having my own evaporator.

But my great-grandpa and grandpa made syrup back in the day. I have the arch from their evaporator. Today it's on display in a building we sell pumpkins out of, hiding the electrical boxes.

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[MajorWoodchuck]

That looks like it came off a pretty big evaporator. Are you taping the same woods as your ancestors? Did you get to make some with them? Careful or you'll get addicted and then consumes your every waking thought on how you can make a little more or improve on this or that. My wife confirmed that I was only going to tap the same as last year. I gave her the deer in headlights look and kind of nooded and said sure...about the same as last year...maybe only one or two...dozen more.

[ohiosam]

Same land, getting close to two centuries in the family. Both were long gone before I came along. My dad (he's been gone over 30 years) remembered making both maple syrup and molasses on that evaporator.

[heus]

ohiosam my story is similar to yours. I am north of you in Ashtabula County. When I got into sugaring in 2009 it was the first time since around 1965 that anyone in our family had made syrup. Same woods and many of the same trees that my great and great great grandfathers tapped 100+ years ago. Like you I also have pieces of the original evaporator in my sugarhouse.

[ohiosam]

Heus, this is the only tree my grandpa might have tapped. He died in 1931.
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