BP>Hey Sandra, are you collecting maple syrup? I have seen it at the super
BP>market, but never had a go at it. Saw a documentary about maple syrup
  I can. The first requirement is to have maple trees. (Not even sugar
  maple trees.) A spile is nothing more than a hollow tube, with one end
  for inserting in tree, other cut to form a small spout. Use a drill
  augur (what IS its proper name?) almost the same diameter as the spile
  to drill slightly upwards about 1/2 inch , and tap in the spile.
  Suspend a bucket below the spile to catch the sap. (Some people use
  plastic tubing to run through the lid - this keeps out bugs, dirt, and
  rain.) A large maple can handle 3 - 4 buckets, or 4-5 spiles feeding
  into one large container.
  Sap must be collected daily, or twice daily during peak flow if you
  have standard buckets. Best flows come with freezing nights and warm
  days. Sap left too long ferments - all that sugar, after all. :-)
  Now, if you want to loosen all the wallpaper in your house, try
  reducing the sap to syrup consistency on your stove. 40 gal. sap makes
  1 gal syrup, more or less. Lemmesee, 39 gal of water vapour in the
  air, sticky wallpaper...Nah. An easier way for many is to freeze
  smaller batches of sap till partially solid, then pour off the liquid.
  Since sugar freezes last, the liquid contains most of the sugar. Then
  boil it down. You may need to boil down only 5 to get 1 gal. :-)
  A neighbour, who does things the old fashioned way, has a wood-fired
  sugar shack operation. For 2-3 weeks every spring, we see the buckets
  on trees all along his fence rows, and smoke puffing out the chimney
  of his shack.
BP>some time ago. There seem to be not to many of you left....
BP>We go shopping tomorrow, have to get one of them bottles, just for my
BP>sweet tooth....hehehe
  I haven't done it for a while - did it mainly to show the kids how.
  Won't this year - haven't the energy nor desire.
BP>SP>  Yeah, add one drop and $3 to the price of shampoo. :-) It's a fad 
ver
BP>SP>  here.
BP>How did you know? It might be a fad, but it really is good staff...
  I like mine, just forget to use it often enough.
BP>Ours lasts as long, but other sources come on line which are more
BP>productive. Mostly from different eucalyptus trees. When they start
BP>blooming there is so much nectar produced that the bees cant possibly
BP>collect it all. But then there are a many native birds and marsupials
BP>that are also drinkers of nectar and eaters of pollen....>
  Syrup-sucking marsupials we are short of. But bees, wasps, and other
  assorted sippers are busy in the flowers...if the neighbors'
  pesticides don't wipe them all out.
BP>Do you like it as much as maple syrup?...I love honey too. but I try to
  I eat neither at present, but ate far more honey than maple syrup.
  (It's an expensive treat even where it's made!) But my trigylcerides
  practically gave my doctors a heart attack; so, for now, discretion is
  the better part of valor. Or something.
BP>keep it of my hips...and convert it into energy...mostly riding my bike
BP>and walking...but I also like pan cakes....with honey..a dangerous
BP>combination for the spare tyre around the hips....:))))
  Yeah.  I'm doing the stationary bike thing - never could before
  because of an uncomfortable seat. Got a better one now (we both do!
  :-)) It's starting to show results.
BP>I take it, you live somewhere in southern Canada...is that correct?
  Yep, southern Southern Ontario, to be exact, in between Lake Erie and
  Lake Ontario. There are only a few spots in all of Canada that are
  warmer in winter, sw of here, the Okanagan Valley in BC (as well as
  the southernmost coast of BC, and a couple places on the East Coast.
                       ...Sandra...
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