We helped out with some of the maple farm work this week. Over the past couple of years, David’s family has been converting their different woods to a tubing system.

First, we went out to one of the woods to clean the sap lines. After we turned on the vacuum pump, we followed the tubes. Sam had a sprayer tank filled with warm water to squirt through the lines.

David pulled spiles and I followed behind and dipped the lines into a bucket of warm water.

We did our best to avoid the poison ivy and oak. David’s brother Ben gave me polkadot rain boots one Christmas. They’re my walking in the woods footwear.

I often borrow a pair of my mother-in-law’s overalls. Farmer David and Leah reporting for duty!

David peeked into a rundown building on the property and found an arch for an old evaporator:

Once we finished in the woods, we came back to the house to clean buckets and lids. Even though the tubing system increases production, they will always tap some trees the traditional way with buckets. This is the machine they use to clean the buckets. It’s connected to a pulley that rotates the brushes:

We washed about 1,000 buckets and lids. Water splashed everywhere! One person used the machine to clean the inside and bottom of the buckets. Next, they passed the bucket to another person to rinse the outside and inside.

Then a runner stacked the buckets and lids so they could dry. We created a bucket barricade:

So, so many buckets!

It was a long afternoon of hard work, but it felt good to be back on the farm.