Unsettled Spring Weather Brings On The Sap

We had an unexpected spring storm last night, with thunder and lightening in the early evening and then very high wind and rain through the middle of the night. The temperature stayed mild, and as a result, Dad was up into the wee hours of the morning making sure that the sap tank did not overflow. He said that it ran very well from midnight until 4am, and he boiled down the sap that he collected overnight first thing this morning. We will have to get out into the woods soon to check for branches that may have come down during the storm, and to make sure that all of the lines remain in good repair.

The sap has been running steadily over the past four days and we have made about a quarter of an average crop so far. Yesterday was the best day of the season to date as we made close to 100 gallons of syrup (that's 4000 gallons of sap collected!). We would consider that to be a good production day on average, however, we have definitely had larger runs, sometimes collecting 7000-8000 gallons of sap in one day! We have had some big temperature swings this week, but we're still waiting for the "perfect" sap day. -5°C to +5°C with crisp sunshine would be ideal.

If you are in the mood to do some more maple reading, check out this blog by Bruce Sherman. You'll find some great pictures that he took at our farm yesterday, as well as some thoughtful blog commentary from a true maple enthusiast. If you look closely, you'll also find a great painting that Bruce did of our farmhouse. Enjoy!

A. Y. Jackson's The Red Maple

A. Y. Jackson was one of a group of Canadian painters (seven at first) --all highly influenced by the Impressionist movement-- who became Canada's most important art movement. When I was younger, one of the art projects we were given was to reproduce a painting by the Group of Seven. A humbling task, given the talent of these painters, able to suggest a storm, a forest, or a river with just a few flecks of paint.

The Group (along with Tom Thompson, who died just before the Group formed) frequently travelled along Georgian Bay and in Algonquin Park, which are in the vicinity of Sweet Marie's neck of the woods. Eventually they moved far afield to British Columbia and Nova Scotia in search of ever more rugged landscapes. Their numbers expanded beyond the original seven and they became the Canadian Group of Painters.

CBC Digital Archives hosts "The Group of Seven: Painters in the Wilderness" a video series about the Group of Seven