Another photo tour

For this photo tour, we went to the Coggeshall Farm Museum in Bristol, RI. The picture on the right shows one of the farm's ewes and the two lambs she had recently (one is shy, you'll see it if you click on the picture to expand it). And, once again, it was my wife who signed us up for this fun event. This was a special day at the farm where they showed us how they made maple sugar back in the 17th Century. They told us that the use of maple syrup is a relatively new phenomenon (as far as its every day use - native people knew how to make maple syrup before the Europeans arrived). But the need for sugar and the difficulty of importing cane sugar caused the making of maple sugar (not maple syrup) to be a rising industry in colonial times. Places far from sea ports couldn't get the sugar from the Caribbean as easily so they made maple sugar. Another interesting fact was that they used sugar more as a spice back then rather than the over-used ingredient as we do today.

First, you have to tap the tree. Interestingly, you don't need Sugar Maple trees for this. Almost any maple will do and here on this farm they have stands of Norway Maples so that's what they use. Here's my son, Evan (in the green cap), taking a turn at screwing in the auger Notice it is angled up so the sap flows down. The auger makes a small hole in the tree. The folks at the farm said they don't need to worry about damaging the tree as long as the holes are small and there aren't many taps. The trees will heal themselves and there is no need to patch up the hole later. In fact, patching the hole seals in any bacteria or molds that may have gotten into the hole during the process.

Next, you have to put in the spile which is the name they give the small drain that transfers the sap out of the tree and allows it to run out of the tree far enough to drip into a collector. Here our friendly farm worker (how could he be so nice when it was so cold that day?) carefully taps the wooden spile with a wooden mallet. Modern farms would use stainless steel spiles but the Coggeshall Farm tried to be as authentic as possible and makes their own wooden spiles. The wooden mallet lessens the chance of splitting the wood. Notice how he angles the spile at the same angle the hole was tapped. You have to get it right or the spile will break or split.

This next picture shows that they really go all out to be authentic and make their own collecting bucket by hollowing out a large piece of tree trunk. They used an adz to remove pieces of wood bit by bit. These guys must have incredible patience. This tap has been going for a while and the drips were coming about once every two seconds. It would take quite a long time. You can see that these wooden farm-made spiles aren't perfect and allow some of the sap to leak down the trunk of the tree. You can see that, as with all technology, there is always room for improvement and there are always lots of areas for creative people to improve products.

The final picture shows the two farm workers stoking up the fire. They will have to boil down the sap (in large cast iron kettles) for a long time to end up with maple sugar. Plus, it was a very cold day and the fire helped to warm up glove-less fingers. I don't know how they did it. I had a heavy jacket and gloves and I was freezing.

In case you are interested in tapping your own trees and making syrup, here are a couple of links.

Making Maple Syrup at University of Cincinnati Clermont College


Tap My Trees