Daily Update for Maple Syrup Volunteers

Here is where you can find semi-daily updates on our need for volunteers throughout the syruping season.

March 19, 2010
Unlike most of the people I know, this cold weather is putting a smile on my face! It is exactly what we need to get the sap to start flowing better. We hope that the trees will 'let loose' this weekend and will keep us busy for the next few weeks!

Sap Collection: We are asking for help collecting sap this Sunday, March 21st beginning at 3:00 pm. How long we will be collecting will depend on how many people show up but I anticipate being out there until about 5:00 pm or so. No need to sign up, just show up at the shack and we will put you to work. Never collected sap before? Just come to the sugar shack and we will show you what to do!

Syrup Cooking: We hope to fire up the evaporator for the first time on Monday morning. How long we cook will depend on how much sap we bring in on Sunday. Knowing Brother Walter, the evaporator will be going before most of us are out of bed! We will send final details about what time we will start cooking Monday later this weekend.

Volunteering: Please remember to keep track of your hours you spend out at the sugar shack! You can use the volunteer book in the sugar shack to keep track, or keep track on your own and send me the information at the end of the season. This helps us keep track of how much human-power goes into making maple syrup at Saint John's!

Basketball: Go Gophers!! How are your picks? I'm tied for 2nd in my group!

March 17, 2010
Perhaps a little luck o' the Irish will bring some cold weather our way! If not, it may be a short season for us. While there has been a bit of sap flow since we tapped, it is not enough to need people to come out and collect sap yet. The nights just have not been getting cold enough. We started our field trips yesterday and the little sap that is out there will be collected by those groups, at least for the next few days. Keep watching for an email asking for help with sap collection and for an email on Friday asking for help with the festivals. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

March 14, 2010
A huge thank you to the almost 150 people who came out yesterday to help us on our first day of tapping for 2010. Thanks to them, we were able to put out over 800 taps in maple trees in just over 2 hours! We hope everyone enjoyed their time out in the woods! We used a different tactic this year to get the trees tapped, breaking up into smaller groups instead of staying in one large group, and we hope everyone felt more involved in the process. We welcome your thoughts on how the day went, especially if you have helped in previous years, and suggestions on how to make it better. Please send your comments to sgainey@csbsju.edu.

Photos: If you have a few great photos from tapping day, please send them to arboretum@csbsju.edu. We appreciate if you only send us your top 5 favorites, which helps us manage the large number of photos that people submit to us. Thank you!

Tools: If you allowed us to borrow a tool of yours yesterday morning, such as a hammer, hand drill, bit, etc..., and you did not get it back, please email sgainey@csbsju.edu to let us know what you are still missing.

Crew Leaders: Look for an email tomorrow morning reminding you of the upcoming trainings this Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.

Learn More: If you are interested in learning more about the natural history of maple syrup, join us at the Arboretum's monthly Natural History Lecture Series, which this month features Steve Saupe, CSB/SJU Biology Professor. He will give his Natural History of Maple Syrup talk this Tuesday, March 16th from 6:30-8:00 pm. Come to the pendulum area in the New Science Center and follow the signs to the lecture. Free for students of all ages and Arboretum members, $5 for non-members.

What's Next?: It all depends on the weather! As soon as we have sap to collect and cook, we will send emails asking for help. While the warm weather is a nice change, we need temperatures below freezing at night and above freezing during the day for sap to flow. Also look for an email later this week asking for volunteers for the two festivals this year, March 27th and April 10th.

March 12, 2010
Tomorrow is our big tapping day! We are excited to get the season started and we appreciate everyone who is planning on coming out to help! We strongly recommend parking on campus and walking out to the sugar shack, as the mud is already very thick out there and vehicles have already gotten stuck this week. With all the rain we are having, the area is only appropriate for vehicles that can handle muddy conditions. Also, while we plan to start at 9:30 am, we realize not everyone is able to get out there right away so please join us when you are able. Drizzling rain is forecasted and there is still lots of snow in the woods so be prepared for the conditions. See you then!

March 8, 2010
In less than 1 week, we will have about 1000 taps in our trees! Lots to do between then and now, here is how you can help.

Tapping Day: Plan on joining us out at the sugar shack anytime between 9:30 and 12:00 on Saturday, March 13th for our first day of tapping. We will start the day with blessings and songs, then a tapping we will go! Coffee, hot chocolate, and pastries will be available in the morning, bring your own mug if you can!

Crew Leaders: We are still in need of people able to commit to collecting sap about once per week. I am especially in need of people for CSB/SJU Cycle days 2 and 4 or Sundays. See the Crew Leader website for more information, email sgainey@csbsju.edu if you are interested in helping!

February 15, 2010
In less than 1 month, the Saint John's Maple Syruping operation will be in full swing! Are you ready?!? Here are a few notes for the beginning of the season.

Tapping Day: Mark your calendars now for Saturday, March 13, 2010 as our inaugural tapping day out at the sugar shack. Festivities will begin at 9:30 am with a blessing of the season and by noon we will have tapped about 1,000 trees. Lots of help is needed! More details to follow!

Crew Leaders: We are currently recruiting volunteers to work as our Maple Syrup Crew Leaders. These people commit to being out at the sugar shack one afternoon per week to help with collecting sap, instructing volunteers, and other duties. Please see this website for an informational flyer and to sign up to help!

April 24, 2009
The shack is cleaned up, the buckets are washed, and thoughts have turned to the spring weather, planting gardens, and the end of the school year. But before we completely wrap up our 2009 maple syruping season, we owe a lot of people a lot of thanks! All the numbers are still being tabulated but I can tell you that from 1287 taps we collected 10,840 gallons of sap, from which we 'officially' made 268 gallons of syrup (plus a few more that were eaten before they were counted!). WOW! Our final report from the season will all the totals will be posted soon.

Volunteer Hours: This will be your last chance to give us any other volunteer hours that you weren't able to write in the volunteer book. Please email sgainey@csbsju.edu by Monday morning with any other hours you would like added. We will be in touch early next week with details on how volunteers can pick up their thank you for helping this season. 

In Search Of: We are looking for a few items that will help us out at the shack. If you have access to any gallon glass jars, square buckets for collecting sap on the tree, or a holding tank for sap at the shack, please contact wkieffer@csbsju.edu Thanks!

April 15, 2009
Thanks to some incredibly efficient and motivated volunteers today, we are finished cleaning buckets already! However, we still can use help with other things on Friday morning, April 17th so here is the plan for Friday.

Friday, April 17th
General Sugar Shack Clean Up Part One 9:00 am-12:00 pm
Meet at the Arboretum offices for a ride at 9:00 am, any time after that just meet us at the shack.
General Sugar Shack Clean Up Part Two 3:00-6:00 pm
Meet at the Arboretum offices for a ride at 3:00 pm, any time after that just meet us at the shack.

For those of you who need hours for a class, this is more than likely the last day we will be out at the sugar shack this year...

April 14, 2009 Second Update
Clean Up Schedule: It is an inevitable part of any labor intensive process...the clean up! Here is our schedule for clean up the next few days. We appreciate any help you can give!

Wednesday, April 15th:
Bucket Brigade Part One 2:30-5:30 pm
Join in anytime you can and wear clothes that can get wet! There will be snacks!
Meet outside Quad at the Reef loading dock, between the Quad and Greg House. When approaching the doors to the Reef, veer right and keep going on the sidewalk like you are walking towards the lake. You'll see the loading dock on your left just past a row of bushes.

Friday, April 17th:
Bucket Brigade Part Two 9:00-12:00 pm
Join in any time and wear clothes that can get wet! There will be snacks!
Same place as described above

General Sugar Shack Cleaning Up 3:00-6:00 pm
Meet us out at the sugar shack for what we hope is the final cleaning up for the season!

Volunteer Hours: Whether you helped because of a class requirement, out of the goodness of your heart, or both, we need to record ALL volunteer hours! If you helped because of a class, you may need to separately report your hours to your professor. But we still need you to either record your hours in the volunteer book at the shack or email sgainey@csbsju.edu with your total number of hours.

April 14, 2009
We hope you enjoyed the holiday weekend! The sugar shack was a flurry of activity over the past 5 days and we have some amazing news to report...

Syrup Cooking: We have so far made just over 250 gallons of syrup this year! There is still a last little bit to be cooked off but for a year that started off slow, this is an amazing total!

Clean Up: The weather is now too warm for sap to flow so we began to pull the taps on Monday. Helping with all the clean up that comes next is greatly appreciated! Please look for an email later today with details on when and where you can help with clean up. We are still in need of more people to help with the 'Bucket Brigade.' See the April 8th entry with details and email sgainey@csbsju.edu if you are willing to help with this job!

Volunteer Hours: We will begin to tabulate volunteer hours early next week. It is important to us to record all of our volunteer hours #1-to accurately quantify all the work it takes to make our season happen and #2-so we can reward our volunteers! If you have volunteer hours that you have not yet recorded in the volunteer book out at the sugar shack, please email sgainey@csbsju.edu the number of hours you still need to record. We will add them to your total number of hours. Then you don't have to worry about getting out to the shack just to record your hours.

Additonal News Coverage: Thanks to Steve Saupe's mother-in-law for informing us about an article that ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer, their major newspaper, on April 9th. It is a version of the article that appeared in the Star Tribune earlier in the season. Check out this link to view the article.     

April 8, 2009
The sap continues to flow! Again, if you are going to be around during the Easter break, please email sgainey@csbsju.edu by Wednesday (today) at 4pm) to get on our 'Available over Easter' email list. After that, if you are interested in helping over Easter, please email Brother Walter Kieffer at wkieffer@csbsju.edu.  Brother Walter will be letting people on the 'Available over Easter' list know when he can use help over the break. This will be the last daily update until next Tuesday, April 14th.

Sap Collection: We need help collecting sap today between 2-5 pm. If you are leaving for Easter break, this may be your last chance to collect this season as it is hard to say if the sap will still be flowing next week!

Syrup Cooking: We will be cooking syrup today starting at about noon and going until late afternoon. Again, join us if you can!

Bucket Brigade: In anticipation of the end of our season, we are looking for some dedicated volunteers who won't mind spending an afternoon in the sunshine outside the Reef scrubbing our sap collection buckets. The date(s) will be announced after Easter but we would appreciate people letting us know in advance if they are willing to help with this wet and dirty but necessary job. We will feed you and reward you 'sweetly' for helping! If you are one of those dedicated people, please email sgainey@csbsju.edu!  

Totals: Here are some interesting numbers for the 2009 maple syrup season so far...

• 187 gallons of syrup made
• approximately 1200 taps out
• over 1300 participants during the two maple syrup festivals (new record!)
• over 1000 preK-12th grade students participated in a maple syruping class
• over 300 CSB/SJU students participated in a maple syruping class

April 7, 2009
These are the days we've been waiting for since March 14th! A night with temperatures in the mid-20s followed by a sunny day with temperatures in the high 30s to mid-40s is perfect for sap flow!

Sap Collection: We will be collecting sap today from 2-5 pm. You never know when the last sap collection day of the year will be so join us if you can!

Syrup Cooking: We are also cooking syrup today. In the mood for a hot pancake with fresh maple syrup? Want to experience something that no other liberal arts college (that we know of) in Minnesota offers? Come out to the sugar shack and be a part of the magic that is cooking maple syrup! We anticipate cooking until at least the early evening hours.

Steve 'The Sap' Saupe in the News: Our very own syruper Steve Saupe has recently published an article in the University of Minnesota Extension Yard and Garden News. Check out this link and look for the article titled The Mystery of Maple Sap Flow.

More Maple News: Here is an interesting article about the effects of global climate change on maple syruping. Thanks to Emily Franklin, former Arboretum Office Coordinator, for alerting us to the article and helping to keep us informed!  

April 6, 2009
Sap Collection: The sap is still flowing quite well! We are a little behind on sap collection so we appreciate everyone who can come and help us collect today anytime between 2-5 pm.

Festival Success: Thank you to everyone who made out latest festival a wonderful success! Over 700 people attended this past Saturday, to bring our combined total between the two festivals to over 1300 people! A new attendance record!

Syrup Cooking: We are planning on cooking syrup tomorrow afternoon, we will send details with exact times tomorrow morning.

Volunteers over Easter Break: We are anticipating good sap flow over the Easter holiday. With CSB/SJU on break from Thursday to Tuesday, we are in search of people who will be around over the Easter holiday. If you would be willing to be on our special 'Available over Easter' volunteer email list, please email Sarah at sgainey@csbsju.edu by Wednesday afternoon. If you have family visiting for the weekend, bring them out to the shack to get involved!  

April 3, 2009
Festival Volunteers: Preparations are underway for our second festival tomorrow! If you plan on attending, today is the last day to preregister and save $1 per person.

If you have volunteered to help, I sent out the volunteer schedule last night. You will see that there already this morning are changes to the schedule-thanks for your flexibility! If you volunteered to help but did not receive an email from me yesterday with the schedule, please email Sarah at sgainey@csbsju.edu today! We have enough people to help with the set up shift at 11:00 and could use just a couple more for each of the other shifts, if anyone is still available.

Sap Collection: A reminder that we will NOT be collecting sap today as we would like to save any we have for the festival tomorrow. Thanks for your help with this.

Volunteer Hours: Just a friendly reminder to record any and all hours you put in out at the sugar shack. That includes sap collecting, working at festivals, syrup cooking, etc... We keep the volunteer book in a white three-ring binder on the shelf to the left as you walk into the shack. If you don't record your hours, we can't thank you 'sweetly' at the end of the season!

Request for Wood: For those of you who have seen our new addition to the sugar shack, you probably also noticed the amazing work volunteer Kevin Sittauer has done with the wood paneling. He is in need of a bit more lumber to finish the job and is looking specifically for species such as American elm, tamarack, and black walnut. If you can help him out, please contact him at sittauer92@hotmail.com

On the Lighter Side: Volunteer Gary Gillitzer forwarded this comic and wanted to share it with you. Enjoy! 

April 2, 2009
Syrup Cooking: We will be cooking syrup all day today until at least 10:00 pm tonight. Come and join us if you can! We will be making pancakes and enjoying the new addition to the shack! The road is now plowed out to the shack. Steve Saupe's crystal ball indicates today is one of the best times for cooking we will have all year. If you've always wanted to see the evaporator cooking syrup, today is the day! 

Sap Collection: We will need help collecting sap this afternoon. We will be out at the shack all day long, come out and collect any time this afternoon!

Festival Volunteers: Look for the volunteer schedule later today.

April 1, 2009
Sap Collection: Finally! Our bags and buckets runneth over! We are in need of LOTS of people to help collect sap today between 2-5 pm. The road out to the shack will eventually be plowed, but as of 11:00 am it is not yet plowed so why take a chance? Enjoy the beautiful woods and walk out to the sugar shack. The snow is deep in the woods so we recommend boots or even snowshoes. It is an amazing day to be outdoors and we can really use the help! 

We are also tentatively planning on collecting sap tomorrow afternoon, Thursday, April 2nd, as well. Details will come tomorrow morning.

Syrup Cooking: We plan on cooking syruping starting tomorrow morning, so join us if you can anytime after 8:00 am. We will send updates during the day tomorrow to let you know how late we will be cooking.

Bag Assembly: We are postponing a bag assembly previously scheduled for today. If you were planning on helping with that, please go help collect sap instead!

Festival Volunteers: The volunteer schedule for this upcoming festival will go out either later tonight or tomorrow morning. Thanks for your patience and willingness to help out!

PS-This is no April Fool's joke...we really need people to collect sap today!

March 30, 2009
Festival:Thanks to all the volunteers who helped on Saturday, our first Maple Syrup Festival was a great success! We hosted over 600 people on Saturday and we heard great comments from everyone who attended. Thank you again to all the volunteers who helped everything run smoothly and who made our participants feel welcome. The volunteer schedule is still being put together for this coming Saturday so if you would like to help, please contact Sarah at sgainey@csbsju.edu by Wednesday.

Photos from festival: We saw lots of people taking pictures at the festival this Saturday. We would love to see your top 10 that you took! Either email them to arboretum@csbsju.edu or drop them off at our office, 104 New Science Building.

Sap Collection: While we are thankful we don't have to deal with the flooding like our neighbors to the north, we are experiencing less than stellar sap flow weather. With the snow and the winds coming in over the next few days, we are going to let the sap stay in the bags and buckets until later this week. Especially for the bags, the extra weight of the saps helps the containers not blow around so much. So, no sap collection until further notice.

More Taps: Brother Walter and a small crew of people were out this morning and put out another 350 taps. Having only made 17 gallons of syrup so far and hoping the best flow is still to come, we felt we might as well get all the sap we can!

March 27, 2009
Preparations are underway for our festival tomorrow! If you plan on attending, today is the last day to preregister and save $1 per person. If you can't come tomorrow, next Saturday is looking good too!

If you have volunteered to help, I sent out the volunteer schedule last night. If you volunteered to help but did not receive an email from me yesterday with the schedule, please email Sarah at sgainey@csbsju.edu today! We have enough people to help with the set up shift at 11:00 and the first shift at 12:30-2:30. If you are available for the 2:30-4:30 shift or clean up from 3:30-5:00, please let me know!

A reminder that we will NOT be collecting sap today as we would like to save any we have for the festival tomorrow. Thanks for your help with this.

The segment from Channel 5's program 'Twin Cities Live' is now on their website. Special thanks to Bill Mock for his cameo appearance in the video!

March 26, 2009
Well, conditions aren't quite what we anticipated so we are CANCELING the sap collection for today. We are going to save all the sap we have for the festival on Saturday. Sorry for the last minute change, we appreciate your patience as we attempt (with limited success!) to anticipate conditions.

Did you see the Star Tribune article? It's fantastic!

March 25, 2009
We made 17 gallons of syrup on Monday-thanks to everyone who helped out!

Sap Collection: In preparation for our festival this Saturday, we need help collecting sap on Thursday, March 26th from 3-5 pm. After Thursday, we will NOT be collecting on Friday or Saturday morning, as we like to save the sap for the festival participants to help collect.

Festivals: If you have let us know that you would like to volunteer for one of the festivals, thank you! I will be putting the volunteer schedule together and will be sending it out sometime on Thursday for the 3/28 festival. The volunteer schedule for the 4/4 festival will come out next week. Thanks for your patience and for all your offers to help!

If you aren't available to help at the festival but want to bring your family and friends instead, be sure to preregister by Friday to get $1 off per person!

Media: Saint John's Maple Syrup will be in the news tomorrow (Thursday) in a few different spots. Look for an article on the front page of the 'Taste' section of the Star Tribune. Also, Channel 5's program 'Twin Cities Live' visited the sugar shack on Monday and will be running their story tomorrow also. You can see it at 3 pm on KTSP (channel 5), 8 pm on KSTC (channel 45), and on their website starting at about 4 pm.   

March 23, 2009
4:00 PM Update: We are still going strong with the syruping cooking so we wanted to invite you out to the sugar shack tonight to help out. We estimate that we will be cooking until about 8:00 pm so join us if you can! Be the first to taste the syrup of 2009! There might be pancakes cooking... See you there!

March 22, 2009
Thanks to everyone who helped us collect sap today! We have collected enough sap so we will be cooking syrup for the first time this year tomorrow, Monday, March 23rd. Join us any time after 9:00 am. We think we will be cooking for most of the day so come out and join us if you can!

Please note-we do have maple syruping classes during the week during the day for preK-12th graders and college students. If there is a class in session when you come to the shack, please feel free to join us but please be respectful of their limited time they are able to be out there. Thank you from the Arboretum education staff.

March 20, 2009
Happy Vernal Equinox! (or Autumnal for those of you who may be studying abroad in the southern hemisphere!) We are hoping for some good sap flow this weekend so we are asking for people to help collect sap on Sunday, March 22nd from 2:00-4:00 pm. Meet us out at the sugar shack.

Our first cooking of the season is (hopefully!) going to be on the morning of Monday, March 23rd. We will send a confirmation email on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning with the final details.

March 17, 2009
Saint John's maple syrup is in the news! Check out this great video on the Star Tribune website of our community tapping day on Saturday. In the background you will hear and see Melissa 'MJ' Bach, CSB/SJU student and Arboretum employee, performing her original maple syruping song she composed. Running the drill is our very own syruping guru, Brother Walter Kieffer.

Sap collection is still on for this afternoon, join us out at the shack anytime between 3-5 pm.

March 16, 2009
Despite a major power outage at SJU today, the sap is flowing in the woods! It's a good thing the trees operate under their own power. Thanks to everyone who helped out with our tapping day on Saturday, we were able to tap about 800 trees in just under 2 hours with the help of over 100 people. We couldn't have done it without you!

Our first sap collection of the season will be on Tuesday, March 17th between 3-5 pm. You are welcome to come out to the sugar shack any time between 3-5 and help collect sap. If you have never collected before, Arboretum staff and other volunteers will be there to show you what to do. We HIGHLY recommend walking out to the shack as the road is quite muddy and wet.

March 13, 2009
If you are looking for a ride out to the sugar shack on Saturday for the tapping day, please meet at the New Science Center by 9:00 am and we will give you a ride out there. If you plan on driving yourself out there, again, we highly recommend only driving vehicles that can handle the snow! Here is a link to directions out to the shack. See you then!

Also, please be respectful of the ski trails you may encounter on the way to the sugar shack. Walking on the ski trails both makes them dangerous and lessens the enjoyment for skiers, who, like syrupers, are at the mercy of the weather and a short season. Thanks for your cooperation!

March 12, 2009

March 4, 2009
The syruping season is descending upon us and we are getting ready for the fun! Here are a few details about the syruping season you should know.