Our Homeschool Station

We have learned a lot throughout this homeschooling journey and one thing I most definitely am confident about is that a designated school room is just not for us. We had a beautiful room designated for schooling and I quickly realized that being in one spot wasn't working with two elementary kids.  They wanted to move around and sit in different areas and I started to get tired of shleping it all around the house.  Things quickly became scattered and disorganized and had me feeling pretty discouraged.  I tried a few other ideas that werent ideal but recently stumbled across this cart at our Sams Club.  I paid under 40.00 for it and it truly has been the solution to our needs.  I can roll it from room to room, even up to my desk so I can flip through my instructors guides and do my planning on the computer, and it holds everything we need for the day!

Tree Tapping with Tap My Trees

It has been very busy around here as it usually is this time of year.  But as I promised before, I am going to give you a quick run down of the "how" to tap your maple trees using the Tap My Trees starter kit. I have been using this kit for a few weeks now and it has been working out great.  Once I get my pictures together off of my phone I will share with you how some of my friends have been doing this season and my boiling setup at home.

Drill bit included in the Tap My Trees starter kit. 

Slowly drill on a slight downward angle about 2" deep into the tree.  I prefer to tap on the south facing side.

The relief cut or separation in the spile creates a seal around the hole you drilled.  Before you push it in, make sure to slip the bucket hook over the tapered end FIRST.

At this point your tap/ spile should look like this and aimed at a downward angle.

Hang the bucket over the hangar.

 

To attach the bucket cover you need to slide back the metal rod that goes through it enough to line it up with the holes on the spile.  Slide the rod back through to ensure your lid doesn't blow off into the wind. 

This is what the finished product should look like and let the sap collecting begin!  Make sure as the season progresses you check the level of sap collected in your buckets daily and either store in a cool place inside of a food safe container or go right at boiling it into your very own Maple syrup. Enjoy!

I would like to once again thank Jon McHale of Tap My Trees for providing us with the starter kit to review for our readers.  Already the friends of ours that have had the opportunity to see this in action have decided to purchase kits of their own after seeing the simplicity of the setting up.

Cheers!~ Kevin

To Contact Tap My Trees:

Jon McHale

Email: info@tapmytrees.com

Mail: Tap My Trees LLC, 268 Simpaug Turnpike Suite 125, Redding, CT 06896
Toll Free Telephone: (888) 990-9948 
Fax: (888) 666-9120