Poor thing must've been going stir crazy... Looks like it was trying to dig a hole to china! Path goes clear back into the woods! Perfect timing though, cause I need to get out there and start installing some taps!
Snow like that makes it rough getting the trees tapped for sure. We used suspended plastic lines which kept them up out of the snow but it still was a real PITA getting around to tap the trees in deep snow, but I do miss it.
I use the plastic lines too. Here's part of my setup from last year. Aiming for 25 taps this year, with 10 collection points.
Looks good, have you considered running them into a main line with a central collection point? Or are the trees too far apart?
There are places around here that do the sugaring every year. Small Business. From what I can see, they earn every cent of what they charge for their product. I am very willing to pay the price for their efforts and the delicious product.
There's basically 2 nice stands of sugar maples, but they're almost in opposite corners of the 14 acres. Then there's a handful of nice ones scattered around individually. If I was tapping all my red maple too, then that might be feasible. But I only do the sugar maples, because I don't have a nice evaporator. I'd need several 500'+ runs to link together the trees I'm tapping.
