A Different Kind of Bucket List…

It’s that time of year again…while most of the world is indulging in heart shaped chocolate, our thoughts are sweet as well, but are turned toward the trees, more specifically…the Maple trees.  We’ve been tapping our trees for 4 years now, and each year we learn something new or add a few more buckets.  This year is no different.

Buckets and taps can be quite costly; when bought new, a bucket, lid, and tap is about $25!

Our first buckets came from the Millers; when they left for Europe on The Edventure Project, we kindly offered to “store” their buckets & taps for them.  Then we bought a few used buckets for around $15, and finally we just bought $2 taps and used milk jugs, juice cans or whatever.  Yeah, it looked pretty redneck, but the syrup still tasted just as sweet!

Our dream has been to eventually have all proper buckets. So each year we’d invest in a few more.  This year Randy searched Craig’s List looking for a someone selling used buckets.  He was quite excited to find someone selling off a large quantity for a really great price, and they were located in Salisbury…practically in our back yard!  Oh wait, not Salisbury, NH…these were located in Salisbury, VT!  Still, the price was right, so we decided it was time for a road trip.

Do you have any idea what 500 Maple Syrup buckets look like? Neither did we…

We took out the back seat to make room and headed off to Vermont.  Upon our arrival the Maple farmer’s large friendly German Shepherd came out to greet us…did I mention he was LARGE?  As in taller than Jenny?!  Luckily he was also very gentle and sweet.  Jessie and Jenny quickly made friends with Jake, the German Shepherd, while Randy & I looked over the stacks of buckets and started negotiations…Turns out that there were actually 600 buckets available as another buyer hadn’t shown up earlier in the week.  The farmer was anxious to sell all of them, so offered us a deal we couldn’t pass up.

Only one problem…there was no way 600 buckets, lids & taps were going to fit into the van.

Not even the original 500 would have fit, obviously we’d have to make a second trip.

Now that's a busload of buckets!

Did I mention that it was  a 2 1/2 hour drive?…each way?

We quickly loaded up what we could and pointed the MamaBus east.  Upon arriving at home, we stacked them neatly in the driveway and then headed back to Vermont to load up the rest of them.

Now you might be wondering what we’re going to do with 600 sap buckets since we don’t have 600 Maple trees on our property…I’m glad you asked!

We only want about 100 of them, the rest are for sale.  So if you’re in the NH area and want to try your hand at making your own Maple syrup, we can help you out.

For more information about the actual process of making your own Maple syrup, here’s and article I wrote last year on Uncommon Childhood – Lessons From The Sap Fire

We’re selling a complete set-up, bucket, lid & tap for only $12.

If you’re interested in purchasing more than 50, please contact us for special wholesale pricing.

And so this year, our dream has finally come true…we have all proper sap buckets in the woods, no more redneck cans & jugs!  And selling the extra ones is part of making another dream a reality -  a profitable micro-farm.

What are you doing this year to make your dreams a reality?