We had a relentless cold winter in our neck of the woods. I don't believe we had a thaw all winter long until about the tenth of March. In these parts maple syrup season takes in the fifteenth of March to the fifteenth of April. I like to have the taps set in the trees by St Patricks Day and we call it quits when we have ten to fifteen gallons of syrup canned in jars or we run out of wood to cook the sap or we quit having fun. Collecting and cooking maple sap is a fair bit of work but it is work the horses get to join in.

Sap runs best when there is a good frost at night and it gets above 40 during the day. This year we have had several days when the temps get into the high 40s even low 50s but down to 20 degrees F at night. Each night the sap retreats to the roots of the tree and during the day the sap runs to the crown of the tree getting ready to make buds and leaves. Our little tap drains of a small amount of sap into a container as the sap runs up and down the tree. We drive to the woods with sleighs first when there is snow on the ground. This year the snow was so thin that we have used the small hay wagon all season first on frozen ground with some snow here and there and now on muddy ground with water standing and running here and there.

I am using a few different horses. To start with I used Marcy and Herger because it was rather heavy pulling the wagon wheels through snow.  In the wet snow the wagon kind of fish-tailed from side to side. I used Marcy and Beorn when the ground was frozen and the snow was about gone. Now as the mud gets deeper I have again asked Herger to add his extra weight and muscle to the collar to help Marcy. Beorn is the kind of horse that would never say quit but he only weighs around 850 pounds I figure. Marcy must be about 950 and Herger is a fit  1100 right now.  All three of these horses are show horses doing quite well at driven dressage, pleasure driving shows and CDE at the lower levels. Pulling sap is about patience first since they need to stand still while Else ( and hopefully a helper or two ) carry five gallon buckets of sap to the wagon where I pour them into 55 gallon drums. I just wrap the lines around a forked stick on the dash of the wagon and ask the ponies to stand. If they wiggle or move I can spill the sap as I pour the heavy buckets one after the next. If they decide to, they could up and take off, but I trust that they would not do that. Still I keep one eye on them to check their notion and attitude toward the business at hand as I try not to miss the funnel that directs the sap into the barrel. It has taken lots of hours of driving in lots of different circumstances for me to trust them like this and I wouldn't recommend doing this without a header.

Much of the ground where the trail winds through the sugar bush has not been leveled so the wagon tips and cants from side to side as the wheels rise and fall unevenly. Where there is a trail there are ruts in the mud and slippery footing for the horses but they understand the job well and make the best of it. No complaints. So water weighs about 8.35 pounds per gallon. When both barrels are full they weigh just over 900 pounds and the wagon weighs maybe 700 and then the people and dogs weigh another 6-700 pounds so the ponies are getting right down and leaning into those collars to get the load out to the road. When on the black top road where the wagon rolls easier they trot the 3/4 mile home at a pretty good clip.

We pull up beside the sap evaporator where the sap is rolling at a pretty strong boil releasing clouds of steam into the air. There the ponies are unhitched, the barrels are lowered from the wagon with the tractor loader and the ponies are hitched again to return to the sugar bush to get a load of fire wood for the boiler. Since both Else and I work at home we can tend the boiling sap through the day as we make furniture and do our carving and painting. We keep the sap boiling long into the night. Honest work is the best sort of horse training so that side of my day's work is covered too.

So the sap is running better this year than it ever has at our place. Maybe it has something to do with the cold winter we lived through. The syrup is still very light in color and we have all we can do to keep up. Our sap- syrup ratio has been running about 28:1. This year we will make close to 20 gallons of syrup the way it looks. With the continued good weather there is still more sap running, we could get more wood to fire the stove but we are close to having had just about enough fun for one syrup season soon. Soon we will pull the taps.

Else has posted some current pictures of ample syrup season to the gallery page on the Fjord Horse side of our web site. WWW. Norskwoodworks.com

A foot note; Rocco our English Setter started failing in health abruptly this spring and died soon after these pictures were taken. Rocco loved to be with the horses pulling the wagons and carriages. Else has photographed him often with our horses. He is sadly missed.

Phillip Odden

Photo's by Bob Mischka & Else Bigton

Phil's stories are also published in Rural Heritage Magazine. Their web site is: www.ruralheritage.com