Sugar Tapping

On Friday I went sugar tapping with Fiona, Jen, Nora, Dever, My mom, Juju, and My aunt Jenny. As you can see we brought the whole gang. There were two other families volunteering when we got there so we didn't have to tap the whole woods our selves, just kidding they're really nice out at the Yoder Sugar Bush so they wouldn't make us do that. After we finished tapping one woods we all tramped out to the abandoned sugar shack that the people before the Yoder's used. Even thought the roof was half caved in we still had lots of fun looking into the windows. Dever noticed almost everything there was to notice and he won the award for most talkative of the day! For those of you who have never been to the Yoder Sugar Bush I will attempt to paint a picture in you head of what the place looks like. When you park the car you get out and walk an extremely muddy trail for about 1/2 a mile. Then you reach the "main campgrounds" which is were we collect your buckets. In the "main grounds" there is an evaporator room and a kitchen like area. In front of the evaporator there is stacks of wood about 10 ft. or more tall. These stacks are all around 7 ft. thick. All of that wood was hand cut and was cut from logs that were dragged into the "main campgrounds" by people because no machines are allowed IN the woods. Once you have collected your buckets you walk through the first woods. Most days you don't have to collect sap from the first woods, because school groups get to do that when they come and visit. Once you have walked through the first woods, about 1/2 a mile, you come to a clearing. At that clearing you walk, for about 1/4 a mile, until you reach the second woods. That is were the real work begins. To collect the sap from the trees you take down a bucket, that is hanging from a spile, and dump the sap from that bucket into your bucket. Then you replace the bucket onto the spile and place a stick on the bucket so that the other people collecting with you will know that you've already taken the sap out of that bucket. When your bucket is full you dump the sap into the big barrel which is sitting on the tractor, OUTSIDE of the woods. You work away from where you started. Let me tell you, by the time you've finally collected all of that sap you're probably going to be thinking please tell me I don't have to walk all the way back!

By:Sydney