Pictured here is one of my favorite deciduous trees of all time. Its Botanical name is acer sachurarum. Yea, I needed to look that up. 😃 This beauty of a tree is commonly called a Sugar Maple, and for good reason.
In an attempt to produce more maple syrup this year, then last, @farm-mom and I decided to take advantage of the fabulous weather and get into the woods. Our goal was to locate and tag an additional 8 sap producing maples trees.
Last year's hall was just over two gallons, and it looks as though we may have been a little too generous. One of the coolest things about making maple syrup, is giving it away. What a warm feeling you get when the person on the receiving end is soooo appreciative. You would think we just gave them liquid gold.
At the ratio of 50 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup, we figured tapping an additional 8 trees would put us well over the 3 gallons of maple syrup we want to produce next season. With #farm-mom now using maple syrup almost exclusively, when a recipe calls for a sweetener, the more the merrier.
The Sugar Maple in its fall glory.
This is why we need more sap, way too many empties. 😢
Last years sap producing CHAMP!
I can tell you this, for those of you who may be reading this post and think it would be cool to try and make maple syrup, it's a blast.
If you like the outdoors, enjoy being active, appreciate late winter days, take pleasure in making homemade gifts, and think a diet void of processed sugars is up your ally, I say you go for it, if your situation allows.
Just in case you want to give it a try, the first step would be to identify the Sugar maple tree.
The leaf at the top is that of a sugar maple. The leaf below that is from a soft maple, not what you are looking for.
With most of the leaves down long ago, look under the canopy of the tree and you should be able to find some leaves that are still intact.
The two main differences between the two leaves are,
#1 the sugar maple leaf pictured at the top has five lobes, while the soft maple only has three distinct lobes.
#2 you can also notice that the valley between each lobe in the picture at the top is somewhat round while the soft maple pictures below is V shaped.
Remember, 5 distinct lobes on the leaf, and you are on your way to successfully identifying the granddaddy of the maples.
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?
Another way of differentiating the the sugar maple from all other maples is to recognize the differences in their bark. The bark pictured here is that of a soft maple. The bark of a soft maple, comparatively speaking, is much smoother than the bark of the sugar maple.
The bark of this sugar maple is so deeply furrowed that you can peel it from the tree. On an old sugar maple like this one can produce up to 5 gallons of sap on a good day, when the conditions are just right.
In the distance you can see the orange tape on two of the trees we will tap for the first time.
#farm-mom is no where to be seen, I guess she's out exploring.
We knew that this bad boy was there all along, but never tapped it. It was a little bit deep in the woods. Oh well, just a little more exercise.
#farm-mom found these two sugar maples while pulling her disappearing act.
This picture doesn't show both sugar maples. One of these is a soft maple, can you tell the difference.
Here I thought that she was pulling a Rip Van Winkle. You go girl! 
Here are the two sugar maple trees she found, with the soft maple in the middle.
After a 1/2 hr. of cleanup, it will be a lot easier collecting the sap from these two. Five new trees on the scrolls in total, with three to go.
Tree #4, winner winner 
dinner. Another sap producing monster. One of the first 6 sugar maple trees we tapped four years ago.
With all eight new sugar maple trees located and marked we will now be gathering maple sap from 24 trees.
This is the set up. Not a difficult deal.
With the addition of some new trees, we will need to get some additional taps, and possibly some more food grade tubing.
Mission accomplished. What a wonderful day, as we spent hours surrounded by the beauty that only Mother Nature can dole out.
See Ya at syrup time.
Hope you enjoyed!