Starting sometime in the early 1900s, my Grandfather Harry “Jack” Spaulding ran a huge syrup camp in Southern Rush County. The syrup camp and gathering the maple sap was an early spring ritual to make maple syrup and maple sugar for the year to come. Any excess syrup was sold or bartered for necessary goods.

I still remember playing when I was a boy in Grandpa’s hayloft and seeing the hundreds of old wooden buckets he once used. I was around 7 years old when Grandpa thought it would be a good idea to show me the “ins and outs” of making maple syrup.

Our operation wasn’t nearly as huge as Grandpa’s sugar camps of old. Instead of tapping hundreds of trees, we only tapped the four maple trees surrounding my grandparent’s house.

I remember Grandpa took a brace and bit and drilled the holes for the taps. The holes were drilled on a slight upward incline. Once the hole was drilled, he took a hammer and drove one of the taps into the tree. The tap held the handle of the bucket and directed the sap into it. He only put a single bucket per tree.

My job every evening after school was to gather up the sap and empty the buckets into a clean covered barrel. The sap ran best when the nighttime temperature was below freezing and the daytime temperatures warmed into the upper 30s and low 40s. I took great pride in making my appointed rounds each day and reporting back to Grandpa how much maple sap we accumulated.

Naturally, my curiosity got the best of me and I tried drinking a little sap straight from the tree. It wasn’t as sweet as I expected, but still made for a refreshing drink.

It takes a lot of sap to make maple syrup. A good estimate is 40 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup. We got a late start on the sap collecting season, and ended up with just a little less than 20 gallons of sap.

I remember Grandpa building a fire between two concrete blocks and boiling down the sap in one of Grandma’s copper boilers. He carefully stoked the fire and watched the sap as it began to condense.  Occasionally, he would take a long handled spoon and dip it into the boiling sap. He would pour the sap off of the spoon and observe its thickness. With Grandpa’s years of experience, he easily recognized when the sap was properly concentrated and the right consistency for maple syrup. He carefully transferred our syrup to a large pot for Grandma to finish out on the kitchen stove.

Once inside the kitchen, Grandma strained any impurities from the syrup and poured it into Mason jars for storage. I remember how beautiful and amber colored it was in the jars.

Our take after two and a half weeks of gathering sap and most of a day to boil it down yielded a little less than a half-gallon of maple syrup. Not a lot, but the awesome taste when poured over Grandma’s pancakes and biscuits was well worth the effort! And, the experience left a lasting and treasured memory for me.

Firewood cutting permits available 

The public is invited to cut up and remove certain downed trees at Charlestown, Summit Lake and Clifty Falls state parks for firewood. Trees eligible for firewood have fallen as a result of natural causes or have been dropped by property staff. They are along roadsides or in public areas such as campsites and picnic areas.

The cost of one pickup-truck load is $10. All proceeds will be used for resource management and restoration efforts, including replacement of trees in campgrounds and other public areas.

Firewood cut at Indiana state parks is for personal use only and may not be sold. A firewood permit must be obtained for each load. Permits are available at the park office but they are not available on observed state holidays.

Please call the park of your choice during normal state business hours for specific information on firewood permits and hours of availability. For Charlestown State Park call 812-256-5600; Summit Lake, 765-766-5873; and Clifty Falls, 812-273-8885.

Clifty Falls State Park (on.IN.gov/cliftyfalls) is at 1501 Green Road, Madison, Ind.; Summit Lake State Park (on.IN.gov/summitlake), 5993 N. Messick Road, New Castle, Ind.; and Charlestown State Park (on..IN.gov/charlestownsp), 3000 State Park Drive, Charlestown, Ind.

Otter trapping season closes early

Indiana’s DNR has closed the river otter trapping season after reaching its statewide quota. The season was scheduled to run from Nov. 15 until March 15, or until the quota of 600 river otters was reached.

The framework of Indiana’s river otter season was carefully designed to limit the total harvest. Databases and reporting mechanisms allow for close monitoring of the total season harvest.

In addition to the quota, DNR regulations require successful trappers register their otter catches within 24 hours. Regulations also require tagging of each pelt at a river otter check station or by authorized DNR personnel.

“Licensed trappers had a successful 2020–21 limited river otter trapping season,” said Geriann Albers, furbearer biologist with the DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife. “While the season has closed, DNR is continuing to collect data from legally trapped river otter to help guide future management decisions.”

More information about the river otter trapping season can be found at wildlife.IN.gov/8499.htm.