New Painting, Maple Syrup Buckets

Here’s a new painting I did of Maple syrup buckets sitting in a Maple tree.

And the sketch of the site …

Before doing these sketches, I decided to make use of the nice weather and set up Maple syrup buckets. Every year, my dad and I produce a small amount of syrup—about 1 gallon— to share with friends and have with pancakes.

We always make a little change to our process, for example last year we used a different burner. This year, I thought I’d alter the way we collect sap.

Modern, big-production setups use a system of latex lines, running between stands of Maple trees and running to a common downhill location. The collection equipment we have is a little more primitive. We use food grade buckets and latex tubes connected to taps. It’s pretty simple, we use a 7/16” bit and drill into the tree about 1.5”. Plug in the tap, and run the line into the bucket! There y’a go.. UMaine guide linked here: https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/7036e/

I decided to try and place the taps higher on the tree to get more sap. The only problem-/ my buckets and latex lines are between 6” and 1’ too short.

Making stools with three 2×4 legs and a slice of pine, I achieved the 6” raise I needed, but with a lot of effort expended. I still had four buckets to place, and a painting to do, I resorted to other methods.

The next Maple tree I tagged is older, and has suckers growing out of the bottom of it. I used these branches to help prop up the buckets. It worked, and once the wether warms up and sap starts running, we will see if it was worth the trouble to raise the tap height for the amount of yield it nets!

As you can see in this picture and the last, the old Maple Tree has two large dead areas in the base, called “basal scars”. These scars are indicative of some kind of trauma. We might have hit the tree with the lawn mower, or as we suspect, the tree was hit by lightning. The little bit of the tree that was burned cannot grow, and becomes these scars. Sensing it’s been damaged, the tree responds by sending out new shoots. It’s these new suckering branches that are making a nice shelf for my maple sap buckets to rest on.