New(ish) hoping to start this spring!

[TheNamelessPoet]

So... I'm 36 (37 by the time the season starts) Married with 1 daughter who is 3. We just bought our 1st home in CT and I think we have enough trees for maybe 8-10 taps.

I did a little sugaring as a kid, about 30 years ago with my grandfather, and always thought it was fun. Delicious of course as well! Also, my Great aunt (Grandfather's sister) still does it a little in Maine with her grandson. My uncle also did it for a year or so with his kid in CT as well but it was short lived and just minimal like I will be. So I never got too far away of Sugaring. I'll just be mostly messing around with it, and HOPEFULLY I'll be able to come home on my lunch break and collect. I most likley will have to freeze what I've collected until the weekend and boil it then unless I can take care of it after work. I know it's not ideal, but I will see how it goes this year. Truthfully I want to make Maple Sugar and a little candy instead of syrup. Unfortunately, I'm a type 1 Diabetic so I REALLY have to limit how much of it I eat. Being my 1st time, I'm sure I'll be on here with TONS of questions, and I might start a journal thread. I know from the meetings I've been to about it, one of the most important things is to keep a journal about EVERY aspect, weather, Yeild, barometric pressure, wind, all that stuff.

One thing I'm not positive about, is how to care for the trees. what branches to trim off that are low, but make sure there is a good crown at the top, but you want to promote growth of course. I'll take a few pictures and post them soon to get an idea.

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[maple flats]

Welcome to The Maple Trader. The most important thing to remember is to keep it fun. Your daughter will really like helping and before you know it, you will be packing fancy glass wedding favors for her wedding (yes, it comes before you know it).
Only trim the branches that interfere with mowing if these are yard trees, and also remove any that don't look healthy. If your new property includes some woods or a hedgerow, show us some pictures and someone on here can help you decide.

[TheNamelessPoet]

Thanks for the warm welcome :-)
I finally got a chance to go through my yard/woods. I THINK I have 8-10 taps. here are the trees. (incoming a bunch of posts) is this hole a problem?

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[TheNamelessPoet]

I think this one is big enough.

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[TheNamelessPoet]

this one is still too small for 2 taps in pretty sure

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[TheNamelessPoet]

is this some kind of maple?

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[TheNamelessPoet]

this is too right?

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[TheNamelessPoet]

and lastly this one.

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[maple flats]

For tapping, if using 5/16 taps, you can tap 1 at 10" and 2 taps at 18-20" and 3 if over 28" on a healthy looking tree. Those are the diameters. Those are on gravity collection, if you ever go with vacuum (even a 3/16 line on a slope for gravity vacuum, go to a 2 tap max. The first picture is a silver maple. The old hole looks fairly high, try a tap 7-8' below it, if you get brown drill shavings, don't tap under the hole, if white shavings it it good. Often with a hole like that, water gets in and rots a column down quite a long ways. The rest of the tree should be ok.
While any maple (including a box elder) can be used to make maple syrup, generally only 4 are used routinely by maple producers, they are the sugar maple, black maple, red maple and the silver maple. There is also a freeman maple which has 2 of those as parents, I forget which 2.
Start by searching for i.d.'s of those, leaves are best, but growth characteristics and bark also help. With practice it gets much easier.
With a sugar maple the bark changes a lot as it matures. When young the bark only has rather small ridges in the bark and it it a light grayish color. As it matures the bark thickens and "plates" start to form, vertically. The plates will start to curve away from the trunk on one edge.
You also show at least 1 sugar maple. Most of the other pictures are not clear enough. Thye pic showing a spiral notebook with a roll of orange marking ribbon is too small.
Onse you get an identification on each tree, just use the size to decide on taps.

[Galena]

I would say that the one shown in the long shot with what looks like a compost bin to the right is too small to tap, as is the one in the shot already mentioned. Clearer pictures would make tree ID easier but it looks to me like you have 1-2 sugar, a Norway and probably other soft maples.