[AT] Sap is rising/good news and bad

[charliehill]

Bruce we don't have any sugar maples this far south unfortunately.  Sugar 
down here is made from cane.  My father and his brothers and sisters used to 
tell the story about the time when grandpa and all of them had cut the years 
cane crop and had just finished cooking it down to syrup.  They had all of 
the syrup in two wood kegs in the kitchen off the back of the old shotgun 
house.  Someone came to visit and grandpa told my Aunt Mary to go draw so 
and so a jar of that "cane".   The syrup was still hot and when she went to 
turn the tap in the keg it broke out.  The syrup was so hot she couldn't put 
the plug in and the whole keg of "cane" ran out in the kitchen floor.  They 
said the only ones that enjoyed cleaning it up were the dogs.

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Moden" <brucemoden at yahoo.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] Sap is rising/good news and bad


Just A Note;
the "sap rising" can't help remind me of the 1940's when we would go (end of 
Feb.)"with brace & bit along route 39 in the Village of Forestville, NY, 
drill holes in the maple trees, hang buckets with make-shift covers & as 
long as the temp was below 32 at night & above 40 in the daytime we could 
empty 2 or 3 (10 quart) pails several times a day. Pour the sap on to an 
open evaporation pan (about 4' square) on a wood fire watch it boil down to 
the proper consistancy, pull the plug in the end of the pan, draw off 
several galons of fine syrup! I see the "Sugar Shaks" now, drilling thier 
holes, installing the plastic tubes to a central collection point, slowly 
letting it into the top level of the gas fired evaporator & it drains down & 
comes out as syrup- much more efficient I suppose, but if you have any hard 
maples on your land try the old fashion way sometime, it's a great early 
spring/late winter diversion.
Pharmr Bruce
PS: in those days the farmers with a horse would mount a tank on a skid & 
pull it along to dump the pails into, we just used "flyer sleds".

--- On Fri, 3/13/09, charliehill <charliehill at embarqmail.com> wrote:

From: charliehill <charliehill at embarqmail.com>
Subject: Re: [AT] Sap is rising/good news and bad
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Date: Friday, March 13, 2009, 2:33 PM

There is some sort of a "beech" tree that grows in the lowlands around
here
along stream banks.  You can cut a small branch not even the size of a
pencil off of it in the spring and water will run out in a steady stream
like that.

I think I'll leave the poison ivy vine alone thank you.

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Larry Goss" <rlgoss at insightbb.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group"
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 2:21 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] Sap is rising/good news and bad


> What's fun at this time of year is to hack through a poison ivy vine
the
> size of your arm and then have it run a solid stream of sap back out of
> the cut vine.  It's downright scary, really.
>
> Larry
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: charliehill <charliehill at embarqmail.com>
> Date: Friday, March 13, 2009 11:34
> Subject: [AT] Sap is rising/good news and bad
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>
>> I trimed some low limbs off of a dogwood tree in my yard about a
>> month ago.
>> I must have waited to late in the winter to do it.  The sap
>> has started to
>> rise and the whole trunk of the tree is soaking wet with sap
>> that is
>> bleeding out of the cuts.
>>
>> Oh well, maybe it won't kill the tree.
>>
>> Charlie
>>
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