Late winter in New England. The days grow longer yet the nights are still bitter cold. The midday sun provides radiant heat that hints of spring just around the corner. Snow still blankets the ground, buds and leaves on the trees are still a long way off but still, the trees begin to awaken from their long winter nap and their juices begin to flow from the roots to the branches. Sap that is -- the lifeblood of the trees and in the case of Sugar Maples, a secret watery sweet liquid that can be boiled down into thick sticky syrup.
Enjoy this photo essay of the traditional process of turning maple tree sap into sweet, sticky Maple syrup. Fine art photographs by Edward M. Fielding.
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Closeup of a tree tap. A hole is drilled into the tree, tap hammered in, sap drips slowly out into the buckets which are emptied every day. The tree is unharmed and is tapped every year.
Maple sugar shack with close by tapped maple trees. The process is seemingly simple and the season is short - only a few weeks in the late winter. Experience helps the farmer judge when the time is right to start the process. Warm winters can cause and early start to the season.
Traditional galvanized metal buckets hang from the taps. The sap drip in slowly. The buckets have to be emptied every day. The "tin roof" helps to keep rain, snow, pine needles, bark pieces and other foreign matter out of the sap.
Traditional maple sugar house with vents at the top to let out steam. The process isn't complicated but there is a lot of hard work involved - drill houses, insert taps, hang buckets, empty heavy buckets, start a fire, boil the sap down, bottle the results, sell the product. Once the Maple Sugar houses are fired up, they are often manned around the clock with family members taking shifts.
Traditional small family maple syrup operations use a lot of fire wood and an "evaporator" to boil off the excess liquid in the raw sap. It can take 24 gallons of raw tree sap to make one gallon of finished product.
Inside the maple sugar house it is like a sauna. Hot and steamy. Extra points if you spot the grandson among the mist. you can see the feeding tube of raw sap on the right.
Consistency is checked using a special ladle. The syrup maker watches for how fast the liquid drips off the ladle. The metal containers in the background hold the raw sap, feed in from the outside of the sugar house.
Ready to be filtered, bottled and sold. You can get much more of a pure product than REAL maple syrup!
About the Artist: Edward M. Fielding is a fine art photographer working primarily in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire, beautiful area along the Connecticut River in which many family farms and dairies still operate.
