Tap, tap, tap… the sound of impatiently drumming fingers on the table as we wait for the right time to tap the trees. Tap too early, and the tap holes might close up before the peak of the sap run. Tap too late, and the season is over before it even gets started.
Tap, tap, tap… the sound of a test run of the new boiling stove setup. You can’t really call it a “dry” run, but maybe a “sugar free” one. We fired up the stove to make sure the flame was efficient and that the stove would boil hot enough. Then we loaded water into the sap storage tank to test the flow into the boiling pan. Tap, tssss, tap, tssss… the sizzle of water hitting a hot boiling pan. But when we lowered the hood onto the pan to check for a snug fit, we discovered that one corner of the stove had sunk a little. Tap, tap, tap…wedging a wooden shim under the northeast corner of the stove, to once again make it nice & level so the sap boils evenly.
Tap, tap, tap… yesterday’s sound of taps being hammered into the south (sunny) side of 100 trees in the Kopp’s Crops woods. Well, technically it started with a “whirrrrr”, as we drilled inch-and-a-half-deep holes into the tree trunks before tapping the taps in place with a hammer.
Tap, tap tap… the sound of the first drops of sap dropping in the bucket. The buckets on the southeast side of the woods get the most sun, so two days into the season the sap is rat-tat-tatting at a pretty fast clip already. Deeper in the woods, it’s more of a tap… wait for it… wait for it… tap!