Nah, I'm not talking about some hillbilly Morse code or arboreal EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). I'm talking maple syrup production. My kids and I tapped trees today. Well, I tapped trees today as I carried my 12 month old in a backpack carrier.
I had some help from my oldest son (who handed me tools and charged drill batteries for me) and my oldest daughter (who entertained the 4 year old when he started to get wild near the end) and my 6 year old, who held the scissors for me (until she was told that poking them in the mud was forbidden and she decided that helping was too hard) and my 4 year old (who pulled the supply sled for a short stint).
The weather has been unseasonably cold and snowy here for a long time. And this week it is suddenly warm. We've had four days in the 40's or above, several rains, and 2 thunderstorms. (And there is STILL snow on the ground at our place.) So I figured that the sap would be running soon.
It was a last-minute deal and I'm frugal, so I decided that instead of using metal buckets (I only had 2) or waiting for the plastic sap bags I could purchase online, I would modify water jugs that had been left in the basement by the previous owners when the well pump failed. As it turns out, jugged water expires, so the only thing they were good for was filling the toilet tanks so that we could flush when we had no electricity. (The well pump is electric, so we have no running water when the power goes out.) I figured that since it didn't need to be drinking water, I could refill the jugs with tap water after the sap collection.
We have spiles (the sap taps) since we had tapped silver maples for syrup at our old homestead, but I haven't found them since the move. My husband packed up the barn and the garage at the old place, and he unpacked those items here too (as I was tending the at-the-time-not-quite 2 year old) so I have no idea where many things are and get to hunt around for stuff of that sort when I need it. With his help I had turned up two of the spouts before he left for work, but two taps didn't really make it worthwhile. It takes about 50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, and each tree provides anywhere from 5 to 20 gallons of sap.
So we made the trek to the big city and purchased spiles from the only place locally that had them, an old fashioned hardware and variety store that actually knew what the word "spile"meant (unlike my word processor that wants to auto-correct it to "spike"). 
They were cheaply made of bent aluminum, and as it turned out, were a real pain to pound into a tree. There isn't a flat place on them, and they are so thin on the end of the spout that they cut the mallet, but crumple if you hit them with a hammer.
We loaded all of our supplies onto a sled and worked our way from tree to tree in the "side yard". We carried paper sacks of the jugs, a cordless drill, a rubber mallet, a hammer, spiles and spile hooks, zip ties, yarn, and scissors.
After a few trees, I tried one of the old kinds of spiles. It was made of a cast aluminum alloy. I gave it a light tap and the spout sheared off! I was surprised, since it was too warm for the metal to be brittle. I then tried the other old spile. It was flat on the end and compact enough and thick enough to strike with either a mallet or a hammer. It held up despite being made of the same alloy as the broken one. It was made in Canada after all!
Diameter Number of Taps
12-20 inches 1
21-27 inches 2
Greater than 27 inches 3
Tap about 3 feet from the ground, preferably above a large root and below a branch on the side of the tree that gets the most sun. Angle your drill slightly upward and drill in about 2-2.5 inches. Sap runs when there is a large temperature difference between the daytime and nighttime temperature, say about 20 degrees, and generally, when the temps at night are below freezing.
My jug idea worked okay. We'll see how well the jugs function once the sap starts to run. (It hasn't been getting cold enough at night again yet.) I had to put a small zip tie on the handle in order to hang the jugs on the spile hooks in a way that would allow for the sap to drip into the jugs. Even then, I had to trim the tops with scissors, so I guess I won't be reusing the jugs after all. But nevertheless, I didn't pay for my collection containers, and they are made from food grade material.
After tapping yesterday, we had a thunderstorm last night and today we are experiencing 60 mile an hour wind gusts. The jugs were still in place at sundown, but I'm worried that the plastic will tear since the integrity of the structure was probably affected by my spout trimming. And if the winds continues, the jugs may rock so much against the trees that I may have to trim bigger holes, or I may not be able to catch some of the sap. Only time will tell. Looking at the weather report this evening as the tornado watches and wind advisories and severe thunderstorm warnings scrolled across the screen, I gathered that the sap probably won't run until Sunday or Monday. This is good, because I haven't quite figured out how to sugar it off yet. I have vague plans for a rocket stove or converting an old park grill I have. Maybe when the thunder and lightning keep me up again tonight the solution for boiling down the sap will come to me in a flash.
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