well everybody here we are in the world up above and we're at the all Damir farm and we're gonna meet somebody that is going to tell us exactly where we get maple syrup not only that she's gonna show us how we get the maple syrup so come on and follow min we'll go meet her over here sheriff Steven J hey I'm glad to see you again yes yeah yeah I was down in the world of the magical couch in the town of the children's corner in my house and I was gonna have waffles for breakfast and alas I was out of maple syrup so ours on the way up here I thought I'd come into the world of above and get some maple syrup and I thought oh stop by the all Damir farm here at all Damir farm we teach people the whole process of making maple syrup from chopping to gathering and then boiling SAP to make your final product of maple syrup and today I'm going to show you what it's like to tap a tree all right well yeah what is this exactly so this is a diagram that we use when we're teaching folks because it's actually kind of a lot of rules about tapping trees okay so that you don't harm or even kill the tree they want to be able to tap the tree you get the SAP and make sure that the tree is healthy some of the first rules are that you have to identify the right tree to tap and again we're talking about maple syrup so we're going to be tapping sugar maple trees so so what you're saying is there's a certain type of maple tree yeah so you get the maple syrup from not you just don't go to any maple tree and get maple syrup that's right you're not gonna get the real maple syrup yes you get it from sugar maples or red meat oh I gotta have that here so when you're identifying sugar maples we have another little diagram here you typically gonna want to get your maple sap from a sugar maple rock maple hard maple which has the lovely five-lobed maple leaf that were so used to okay and typically you want to identify those trees in the fall when they actually have leaves but you can also identify a maple buy it to bark or it's fruit has those kind of whirligig type of fruit or I'm also looking at the limbs and they'll have directly opposing limbs if you think about sometimes you see alternating limbs we can look at them more closely when we're out in the sugar bush oh the sugar bush sugar any close waffles a corner no right the sugar bush is a grouping of maple trees how much SAP does it take to make one gallon of maple oh boy okay well typically you need 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup Wow and when one tree can give you anywhere between five gallons maybe even thirty gallons of sap just depends on the temperature and the season there's a lot of different things that are involved so once we've identified the right tree we're out there in the sugar bush we see the right tree then we have to determine how many taps the maple tree can take but the tree must be at least 30 inches in circumference and circumference is around the tree we measure with a round circle yes circumference that's a good word of interest circumference see I R see you M F er E and C e circumference conference meaning the length of a line that goes around something that makes up a circle or round object in order for the tree to take one SAP you need 30 inches in circumference right the tree is 54 inches or more it can take two taps or it can take three taps if it's 72 inches or more and we we typically do not put more than three tops in a tree how many years can you tap a tree I just write the other day that there's even been trees tapped for a hundred years we have to stay away from old tap holes so when we're over in the sugar brush you're gonna see some maple trees that have little round scars from their taps from previous years and we want to stay away from those we want to drill no closer than six inches from each side of an old tap hole and no closer than two feet above or below an old tap hole and typically we want to stay away from sort of let any kind of blemished bark if you see here we wouldn't wanna tap inside you know any kind of scar there and typically want to tap around three to four feet high if you can look that's where you're gonna get the best flow and that's what's happening SAP is flowing through the trees you want your temperatures to be below freezing at night and above freezing about forty degrees during the day in order to have the prime conditions for the south to be flowing flowing well maple sugaring season is typically only two to three and a half weeks long Wow so that's not only is the the process of making maple syrup intensive as far as tapping and boiling but such a short season so that's those are some of the reasons why you might pay a little more for your maple sugar so it's down here cover your bucket so I take it you put buckets I have the tree yeah so we're gonna be drilling in the tree just like this image here and we have this is the top of a bucket here that actually has this piece here that it may be a word you've never heard before but this is called a Spile Spile pile and Fei Ellie's bottle yes right here yeah there's a hole there get your top this is you can also call it a tap and will tap this into the tree and the SAP will flow through that hole and it will come out here there's a little chip area and this will sit right on your bucket this will cover your bucket to keep out leaves and dirt and bugs well I'm ready me too I'm ready all right I'll follow you where we going all right we're going to the sugar bush okay where does the sugar boy we're going that way that way I'm following you after you well everybody here we are we ready maple tree and Sarah here is gonna show us how to tap the maple tree isn't that right Sarah that's right so what kind of maple tree is this this is a sugar maple so we're here and a stand of maple trees again we're out in the sugar bush and this is a tree because I would say might take maybe one or two taps but we need to measure the circumference of the tree in order to determine that the roundness around this yes we do know that this is a maple based on the bark you get this kind of long stringy bark like this and we see old tap holes that we have tapped this tree for many years so we're at the right tree which is a great start so what we're going to do is we're going to take our measuring tape and I'm gonna get you to reach your browser here and we're gonna measure it around I'm gonna guess here from the bottom of the tree up here to about three feet okay I see that it is four feet about four feet five inches okay and so since we know how much a foot is then I believe foot is what twelve inches that's right yeah one foot equals twelve inches yeah that's correct so four feet it's 48 inches right plus five more inches for eight four nine 50 51 52 53 all right that right that's right right so this tree could take two taps if we wanted to yeah we're gonna put in one tap okay our meats pile and our buckets or Spile yeah we're gonna do a whole and again this will sit right right in the tree we're gonna drill about a two inch hole sounds great well if you're gonna be drilling I'm gonna be moving okay so I'll tell you what you go ahead and do that and I'm gonna stand over here and watch you perfect great so now I have my drill alright and I have a very specific drill bit that works with the size of my Spile and and now I need to kind of choose the right area on the tree so I think I think this area looks pretty good right here so I'm going to take my my drill and I want to drill at an angle I want gravity to help pull the SAP down and drip down out of the tree so we're gonna drill in an angle I think that looks pretty good oh look you can see it dripping already you can see it's already dripping out yeah I'm usually I find a little stick and I help clean this hole right out you want to be as clean as you can so that the sack will flow nicely out and you can see it dripping here so a lot of people think the SAP coming out of the tree is the sticky gooey stuff that already maple syrup but it's very it's very light almost almost water it's about two percent sugar at this point and when it's ready to be maple sugar that's 66 percent sugar so it's we've got to boil a lot of water out of that SAP to make the maple sugar maple syrup so you need your meter Spile and then you want to it's kind of a sound the kind of a neat sound you want to hear a tink tink tink thud and that's how you know that your tap or your smile is in the tree at the right point wow that's a good sign you know your tops and well first things I like to do is take a little taste of it it's nice and lightly sweet not too much and then one of the last things I'm going to do is to to put our bucket here okay you know I put the pink bag on the ground there almost tripped over it okay there you go just slightly sweet yeah it's not like a SAP SAP it's like really like water like water yeah yeah it is yeah well no wonder you got it boil all that water okay now I notice you have another bucket over here yes does that fool oh I don't know I haven't checked it yeah let's go look at it let's go look let's go look it's this way yes okay well everybody we've walked on over to another tree that was tapped actually a couple days ago and now Surrey is going to open up the top here we're gonna see exactly how much SAP was accumulated in two days Sarah so you've had the right weather condition so oh look at there oh yeah almost half a bucketful excellent and it's dripping nicely that's exactly what you want to see a nice steady drip from the tree well you know what's amazing about this is the fact that it's clear it looks just like water it's really pretty amazing so if you follow me on over to our next stop we're going to show you exactly how we boil it down and get maple syrup thanks Sara appreciate you showing this to us today welcome all right yeah and you're I'll see you next time I come up excellent alright take care bye bye