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A family tradition | Continued from page 7 Faye still has many fond memories of venturing out to the bush with her family and neighbours. “We still call it Dad’s Bush,” Faye said as she recalled when they either walked the quarter mile in snow, or if lucky would get to ride to the sugar bush on the horse-drawn sleigh filled with the kettles and sap pails. In the early days the family tapped about 50 trees collecting sap and boiling it down in large iron pots over an open-air wood fire. After the sap began to thicken, the syrup was transferred into large home-made pans made of tin. The final stage, to get the syrup to the proper colour and consistency was often accomplished on the wood stove in their kitcher The process of ‘making maple syrup is really not that difficult, but does require a lot of labour for about 2-4 weeks. About mid-March the sap run is activated by warm days and cool nights, a temperature range of -5C at night going to +5C during the day is ideal for the best productivity. Although several types of trees contain sap, around Scugog Township, the most common one to tap is the sugar maple. Rob says it takes about 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup and that typically a single tree can produce about 40 to 50 litres of sap in a season. When Focus on Scugog visited the Ashtons last month, their son Robert explained that he and his brothers tap about 300 trees on the property. The older trees, many of which are more than 100 years old, will often be tapped with two or three spiles (spouts). For those unfamiliar with the process, a small hole is drilled into the tree and a spile inserted. In small operations a bucket is hung from the spile. In larger operations such as at Purple Woods Conser- vation Area, plastic tubing is attached to the end of the spile and the sap runs right into the “sugar shack.” Keith says if done properly, tapping won’t hurt a healthy tree and it only takes about one year for the hole from a spile to seal over. Processing involves boiling the sap to evaporate the water, leav- ing a thick sugar rich syrup. The trick is to boil it down to a point where the consistency is just right. With their larger production of syrup, ranging from between 400- 500 litres per year, they have far more than the family requires, so the Ashtons now sell to a number of small local stores. Marketed under the name Ashton Maple Products, their maple syrup is available at Crossroads on Scugog Island, the Trading Post north of Port Perry and at Herrington’s Meats in town. The Ashton sugar bush is not open to the public. Anyone want- ing to experience the production of maple syrup should head out to Purple Woods Conservation Area, located just south of Port Perry. ByJ. Peter Hvidsten Focus on Scugog « “Herrington'’s YL =n ALITY BUTCHERS __4 Available here.. ASHTON PLE SYRUP 251 Queen St., Port Perry ~ 905-985-1456 website: www.focusonscugog.com Jom piiiionts a tin opal ALE AAD EEE A errr | Evering Appointments Available “Congratulations to our local Lieutenant Governor's Ontario Heritage Award winners.” *Design/Buld «Roofing - also Cofteges and Borns 905-922-5020 FOCUS - MARCH 2008 9