Like many people, Elaine Duclos was too busy raising children (six of them, in fact!) and caring for aging parents to spend much time cultivating enjoyable hobbies during her middle-aged years.

But it was during this busy season of life that she first tried tapping trees, inspired by one of her children’s school lessons.

One of her sons, Joshua, told of a teacher who was talking about tapping trees and how the practice of collecting sap to make maple syrup had been going on for centuries. Joshua wanted to learn about that process first-hand, so Elaine got taps and whatever buckets or pails she had there in the house, and set about collecting some sap. She boiled the sap and made a little bit of syrup.

“Certainly not enough for six kids and me. But it was fabulous. Joshua loved it,” Elaine explained.

Elaine’s busy life continued on, and she gave little thought to tapping trees again until a few years ago.

She started thinking about the beautiful maple trees on her property, and decided to try tapping a few. Eight or nine trees produced enough sap for her to boil, and she made syrup. Last year, Elaine progressed to tapping 14 or 15 trees, now producing enough syrup to give away to friends and family.

Elaine has also learned to adapt to the sometimes fickle patterns of nature that dictate quality and quantity of the sap she collects. For example, determining when to tap the trees based on the changing weather patterns from year to year meant realizing the sap could be running earlier this year. She decided to tap the trees the second week in February. She did find sap running, but said “there were some days where there was none because it was too cold during the day.”

Deciding where to tap the trees also became a variable. Having read that the same hole should not be used to tap the same place two years in a row because the tree needs to heal, Elaine strategized about where to drill, where not to drill, and what size drill bit to use.

There is, of course, a science to maple-sugaring, but Elaine’s approach is decidedly minimalist. Rather than using high-tech tools and collection containers, Elaine is content to use simple taps and paint pails for collection. Elaine’s practicality extends to the boiling methods also. She doesn’t boil on the wood stove, because when the water evaporates and the steam rises, that steam has some sugar in it from the sap. Sticky sugar is difficult to clean off the mantle near the wood stove, but much simpler to clean on the microwave door over the stove, and on the stove surface.

What prompted her to pick up and cultivate this hobby? Elaine says she has always loved being outside collecting kindling and working in her perennial and vegetable gardens. A few years ago she thought back to the fun she had tapping trees, and realized “Oh, this is a great thing I could do in the winter, besides shoveling snow.”

Like most things she does, Elaine decided to go “all in,” and as of this year, she has tapped 20 trees.

This year, at age 77, Elaine is still producing very full buckets of sap to transform into containers of golden syrup, and continues to enjoy working outdoors as often as she can.

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