French toast to chairs

nostalgia

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

When I was a kid I dumped buckets into a tank on a horse drawn sled on its way to the sap house. Didn't pay much but I didn't have many expenses either. I loved the taste of sap. Folk lore said it was bad for you. (it is if you drink too much!) Cold nights, warm days makes the sap flow. Now pre-concentrated by reverse osmosis instead of maple fired evaporation pans.

We order 5 gallons every couple of years and repackage for our family use. Shipping is near as much as the syrup. French toast is best made with day old French Bread. Soak overnight.

We ate breakfast one morning in Terrace Bay, Ont in preparation for a canoe trip on the Steel River. The place also was a bakery. I was raving to the baker about the French Toast and he explained in French/English that it was made with French Bread. He came to the table and fetched the phony syrup, rummaged in the back of the frig and produce real maple syrup for us. Unforgettable memory.

Re: French toast to chairs

Hank Knight

Jack, I live in Southern pine country, but I love maple trees. I've planted four of them in my yard and they are doing very well. I don't have any syrup ambitions, but I love the foliage in Fall.

Two years ago

Mike L

in Twin Lakes a small town by me in OH. Someone had all the plastic lines running from their trees in to the sugar house. A person from the city went by and called the cops reporting a Meth Lab on the propriety. The police showed up with everything you can think of, just to fund a Maple Syrup production setup.

I remember as a kid in upstate NY the buckets on the sides of the trees and the sugar houses. My grandfather used to take to some of the local ones to get syrup. Then in the fall we would go to the Apple farms and go into the cider houses.

Now we just go to the store and don't think about it. Great Memories

Thanks

Re: French toast to chairs

Larry Barrett

We have lots of red maples in the woods, but I planted a sugar maple for the wonderful foliage in the fall.

But for you, Jack, good thing your are getting back to work. Too much French toast and maple syrup and next thing you know you'll be taking a nap after lunch.

Re: French toast to chairs

Ron in Sterling, CT

Great story Jack. When I was a kid in Michigan my Dad and Uncle would tap a sugar bush every spring and boil down the sap into syrup. One spring when I was probably 5, maybe 6 I was in the sugar shanty and liked to sit in my uncles rocker whenever he got up to do something. He kept teasing me that if I didn't stay out of his rocker he was going to pull my loose tooth. Yeah right. Guess what. He came back to his rocker one time grabbed me and held me while my Dad yanked out my loose tooth. Never sat in his rocker again. Sure a lot of memories in those old sugar shanties.

Ron

Inspired

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Had some left over Baguette and your post was inspirational.

Woodworking content-recent built table

Bragging - this year's syrup - PICS

Don Goodwin

Bragging

Taps on sugar maples in my front yard - taps are connected to tubes that go to milk jugs in 5-gallon buckets. The buckets have rocks in them to keep the milk jugs from blowing around.

1-days sap collection from my 10 trees that I tap (6 sugar, 4 red).

My backyard set-up for boiling - propane camp stove and home-made smoker modified to hold a catering pan.

Filtering the finished syrup after doing the final boiling on the kitchen stove.

Some of this year's bottled syrup cooling on the counter.

Thanks for looking. This is surprisingly easy to do if you are interested and have access to a few hard maples. It is time consuming and your wife will think you are nuts. Word of warning - boil most of the water away outside.

No idea why some of the pictures are sideways

Don Goodwin

When I reduced the size of the pictures, they all looked right side up. I have know idea why some are sideways and 1 is upside down. Sorry about that

I was going to ask..

Lee Schierer in McKean, PA

Is it easier to get the sap out of the trees if you turn them upside down?

Lee

Haha

Mark Nowicki

It's how Midwestern kids thought trees in China

Don Goodwin

grew.

I was too,you beat me..

Good for a couple chuckles

Kneale Brownson

Reminds me...

Tony - Memphis

Well, two things....we have a couple of red sunset maples in our suburban oasis. I recently trimmed some lower branches and they leaked..for several days. I meant to go out there and taste it, but I never got around to it. I was surprised at how much they leaked though!

This is on a sign at Grayton Beach State Park in Fl...

Prayer of the Woods

“I am the heat of your hearth on the

Cold winter nights, the friendly shade

Screening you from the summer sun

And my fruits are refreshing draughts

Quenching your thirst as you journey on”

“I am the beam that holds your house,

The board of your table, the bed on which

You lie and the timber that builds

Your boat. I am the handle of your hoe,

The door of your homestead, the wood of

Your cradle and the shell of your coffin.

I am the bread of kindness and the flower

Of Beauty. Ye who pass by,

Listen to my prayer;

Harm me not.”

Love that

Jack Guzman from Maine

That poem is a keeper. I'm going to copy that.

Re: Reminds me...

AZ in Colorado Springs

That's a nice poem. But you "harm it not," how can it be any of those things ... ?

Re: Reminds me... *LINK*

Larry Barrett

A little about the Prayer of the Woods ...


https://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/blog/national-tree-week-the-prayer-of-the-woods

Re: Reminds me...

Jack Guzman from Maine

I can reconcile"harm it not" with harvesting wood for furniture. It's about having respect for the trees we make use of. Not destroying forests for the sake of newspapers or such things.

Thanks!

Tony - Memphis

Always wondered where it came from.