One day when I was a seventh grade student the teacher was talking one day about how maple syrup was produced. As I have said in past writings, I was not the best student but for some reason this topic caught my attention very much. So much so that even after I got home from school I went to our set of encyclopedias and went to the book marked M. As I thumbed through the pages, I was watching the topics fly by until I saw the word Maple. Once there I began to read more on this topic, I had heard at school. This was a rarity for me to take such great interest in a topic from school but I wanted to know just what it took to make maple syrup. 
As I read, I think I logged into my mind the different steps one had to go through and the items needed to complete the procedure. Once I did this, I felt more assured that this could be done at our farm. At our other farm there were several very mature maple trees and I guess it was their existence that got me to thinking on the subject. Dad had an old brace and bit with a large drill bit. (This tool was used before the electric drill had been invented) but was just right for what I was wanting to do with it. Next though was an item that I knew we did not have on the farm or even in dad’s electrical tools and supplies as I did look through them. So I looked at the pictures in the encyclopedia and saw it was a portable spout. The next question was just where I would find one of these.
That was when my dad suggested that there was a grub that grew in the woods behind our barn that if I was into doing a little carving I might make one. The grub was a tree like plant that is a soft wood and the center of it was pithy. After some thinking on this, I figured it out. Therefore, I cut a grub and cut a piece of tree branch, which was no more than an inch or two in diameter. Then I cut a section of it no more than four to five inches in length. Then with a piece of a coat hanger, I pushed the wire through the soft material and hollowed out the grub. It was looking like a spout but still did not look just right. So I went back to that encyclopedia once again. (I had marked the page as I felt I was not quite yet done.) Then I saw that the end that went into the tree was sliced at a 45-degree angle so that when it was placed into a tree the sap would flow down the spout and would be designed to drop into a bucket.
Oh, I had not thought of just where I was going to find a bucket. Well dad no longer milked cows and there was a milk bucket that he was not using. So there was one. The thing was I had about six or eight trees I wanted to tap and mom helped me find more buckets. From all that I had learned that as the winter nears late February the sap in the tree begins to move on its way back out into the tree. I guess it gets as restless as we do. So the time was upon us, I was very bored, and my parents were always ones to encourage me to find projects to learn and even more to stay busy at. So for a few days after school I was busy finding all the items needed to sap a maple tree. The most time consuming was making the spouts. Finally, I was ready to begin the business of harvesting maple syrup. Or so I thought.
After school, one evening mom drove me to the other farm, I began boring holes in maple trees, installing a spout, and hanging a bucket under it to collect what I had decided by then was going to be liquid gold. I guess I really took to this topic from the classroom as it felt that maple syrup sold for a high price in the stores.
So if I would just take the sap and put it in pans on the stove I would make a lot of syrup and make some good money.
I felt I had stumbled onto a pretty good plan and was kind of wondering why didn’t other folks do this already. I really had not had to do a ton of preparation and once hooked up to the trees the sap was flowing out on a very regular basis.
Mom took me back the next evening and I emptied the buckets into larger containers as there was a good amount to take back to the kitchen and begin making the product. So far, the enterprise was moving very smooth. Maybe too smooth I guess. On the second night of harvesting the sap and loading it into containers to take to the kitchen was when problems reared their ugly heads. Now my transportation was my mom and she could only use the car. As a matter of fact their first new car. I still do not exactly know how but it happened. One of the containers tipped over and the sap ran all over the floor of the car. At this, my mom freaked out and I panicked. I grabbed every rag and cloth I could to mop the sap up as fast as I could and as I was doing this, I learned one more thing about the maple tree sap. That is it is sticky. Mom ordered me into the car and we went to the house as fast as she could make it go and mom was a lead foot.
Once back home mom and I carried in the sap that was not spilled and she sent me out with cleaner, a mop, and the orders to clean out the car as best as I could and before my dad saw it. With that, I got busy, as I did not need to be told to do that twice and involve my dad in it. It was not much after that mom had a pan on every burner heating a pan of sap, as you have to evaporate off a lot of liquid to get to the really tasty way maple syrup is supposed to taste. After a few nights and days of doing, this mom was for some reason beginning to become grumpy and then it happened. Mom did not see that a pan had cooked dry and the sap burned to the bottom of it ruining her favorite enamel pan. Yes, I said her favorite.
It was announced to me then that this was the last batch of sap she would be doing and my project should be considered finished. It was easy to see just why mom was done but I was bummed out, as I would not be getting rich after all. Then as I was putting the encyclopedia away, I looked at the end of the part on this topic and there I saw it. It takes forty-three gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup! I should have read this first.
Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories about his youth and other topics. If you are interested in reading more of his stories they can be found in his books ‘There are Places to Remember” and’ Memories ARE from the Heart.” He may be reached at [email protected] or mail to P.O. Box 213 Bethel, Ohio 45106.