| Maple syrup production is another major project that is done annually by the Outdoor Projects program. Every spring when the sap begins to flow we collect it and store it until enough is obtained to boil it into maple syrup. To make an appreciable amount of syrup we have to collect a lot of sap since forty gallons of sap makes one gallon of syrup. You can see how much syrup we have made in the past my clicking here. Our campus is unique in allowing us to do this project because of the large number of Red maple and sugar maple trees present on it to tap. Sap is collected using a network of tubing where there is enough slope to allow the sap to collect by gravity at the bottom. Where it is impractical to set up tubing or where there is not enough slope we use metal buckets. We boil the collected sap in the sugar house. Until last year we had used an old shoeing barn for boiling. Now, thanks to the generous support of Charlie Marotta, we have a new sugar house designed specifically for boiling. You can see the new sugar house in the picture to the bottom right, with all the spring flowers growing around it and compare it to our old sugar shack (lower left). | | |
