Oh yep you’re right, i always get those confused. I will update!
My husband has been looking into this particular kind for a while which is why we got one, but I’d say it’s a decent value for the money, especially if you don’t want to fool with all the tools and parts required to make your own. (Only semi related, but that’s one of my biggest pet peeves about home DIY channels, they make it look so easy but they have a truckload of special tools and a carpenter on site, C’MON)
I definitely sympathize, it can be very hard to find a DIY channel that actually feels like the level of janky DIY that I actually have the tools/ability for.
I’d have to look closer at one of those units to know what all it does but I feel like it could be possible to bootleg together something with containers/parts you get off the shelf.
(Maybe you can bribe someone to come up with one for next Devember 
)
EDIT: Took a bit closer look and it seems like the real benefits to it (besides obviously being a pre-built unit) is the reminders along with any of the proprietary nutrients and such.
It’d likely be possible to get a decent amount of the functionality with some plastic containers from the store, an aliexpress LED array and a A/C timer plug.
If you watch the news you probably saw me talk a little about syrup on an episode recently. Last summer, I attempted to identify some maple trees on our property to try tapping. Being overzealous and probably disproportionately confident in my tree identification skills, I immediately added a syrup kit to my amazon wishlist and forgot about it for months, thinking it would be a fun project ‘for later’.
Fast forward to Christmas, and my sister-in-law got me that same kit. Time to tap! With a week of solid sap-running temps ahead, I went out tonight and started drilling our trees:
Taps are IN:
Already getting a tiny amount of syrup:
I’ve never done this before and I suspect we might not get enough sap from the five taps we have set up, but it’ll be a 
learning experience if nothing else. Once I get a large amount of sap I’ll have to find a way to boil it down to true syrup. Fingers crossed we get that far lol.
Put in pot, boil the devil out of it.
At all of the sugar shacks I’ve been to that’s all they do.
Probably want to run it through a coffee filter first to get rid of any sediment though.
If you have any birch or hickory they also make good syrup.
The un-boiled sap, maple water, can be used as natural sweetener, is loaded with antioxidants, and is also a good source of vitamins / minerals.
There is a local beverage company that is entirely based on using maple water for the sweetener and have heard the sales pitch too many times. 
We’ve collected sap for a couple weeks now and have done two separate boils. The results are in:
The first jar was boiled down from around 4-5 gallons of raw sap. The color is a lot lighter than our second jar, which was boiled down from around 3 gallons of sap. I’ve read the difference in color is normal, as the syrup tends to darken and become more ‘maple-y’ as the season continues.They are also a bit cloudier than a commercial syrup, which can apparently be resolved with additional filtering (I only filtered once, twice would’ve been better). Both taste great though! They are really sweet, just like the ‘real’ thing from the store. I’m looking forward to eating these in my oatmeal and yogurt for a while.
We’re probably about done for our first tapping season, unless our temps go back down. The two trees we have tapped haven’t been flowing at all the last couple warm spring days. Still, I’m really pleased with this project. Probably the best farm LARP I’ve done so far, I will likely tap more trees next year.
In addition to tapping our trees, the last week of warm weather has allowed me to get out and do some work on our raised bed area. We still need to actually um… finish the raised beds… but! the area is starting to come together from an aesthetic standpoint. I sourced some really cheap tobacco sticks to start on a rustic fence which I am actually really happy with. I think it will look really cottage-y and cute with some wildflowers and whatnot around it:
I’ve also been re-mulching the ground with woodchips to prevent weeds as the season continues. This has been fairly effective so far; I’ve only had to pull a little bit of growth up here and there. Even better-- digging down a bit in the areas where the raised beds will go, and you can see some nice dark brown dirt starting to form as the wood chips decompose. Exciting (if you’re a compost nerd!)
Also pictured: My transplanted blueberries which will hopefully grow into a small hedge by the entrance.
We have a silver maple that is right above our septic tank. I don’t think the roots have intruded into tank, but I still wouldn’t want to tap it. Better safe than sorry.
One winter, we had a limb taken off of it, and in the spring you could see the sap flowing from the cut for a while, until it scarred over. Now, I hang the hummingbird feeder from the “stump”.
“Tree Water”
Your own maple syrup, how cool is that!
I started garden work, too. Cut back some smaller trees and cut some hedges. Was a nice opportunity to wield around the chainsaw. Around here you are only allow to trim and cut back bushes and trees until the end of February, since after that the first birds might begin to nest in those.
We need to get a chainsaw, we have some invasive plants (mimosa and chinese privet) that are getting out of hand along one edge of the property. We put our money into a tiller first but that will likely be next on the list. What kind do you have?
Yup exactly. That’s how it works. The trees sap and liquids get increasingly concentrated and thicker.
Personally I prefer the dark B grade maple syrup but it’s an acquired taste and incredibly dark.
If you can collect the sap boil it and buy a small used bourbon barrel you can age the syrup in it and give it a wonderful flavor. I’ll leave it to you to decide how long you wish to age it. You’ll have to filter the char out but I’m sure you know this already. The darker saps and syrups are more receptive to being aged than the lighter ones (less water content)
Given you live where you live a barrel shouldn’t be hard to acquire… Preferably once used already since the wood will release more of its flavor (hence why you see scotch use a once used bourbon barrel 
)
Pro tip: wet the barrel staves regularly so that you minimize the loss to the angels share or leakage
PS 6.5 to 7 months is the sweet spot for aging in the barrel. If your willing to wait for something that has quite a unique taste.
Electric is the way to go if you can supply 120V and don’t need a longer bar, but electric motors are torque-y and still just as dangerous as gas powered ones, so treat them the same. Frequency of use is also a consideration as the most expensive gas chainsaws will still need regular maintenance where even the cheapest electrics are generally plug-and-play. Meaning if you leave both sitting in a shed for a year the electric will be easier to pick up and use.
If you can budget in both, an electric pole saw paired with a more powerful gas chainsaw (for emergencies or occasional big jobs) should cover 99% of your chainsaw needs.
We have an electric chainsaw. We also have an electric hedge trimmer, electric leaf blower, electric lawnmower and electric screwdriver/drill. All of those devices are powered by the same 20V battery packs. This is really practical to use. Unfortunately I can’t recommend the brand to you, since they don’t sell in the US.
That’s quite remarkable. As a Canadian it was a standard part of our elementary education to visit a sugar shack where they made maple syrup (no really, other Canadians can back me up). It always struck me how involved the syrup-making process really was.
Seems like a great success for a first try.
Haha that’s awesome! I would’ve loved that as a kid. I was reading and I think the reason Canada and northern states are known for syrup production has something to do with the sugar concentrated in the sap. Apparently the colder temps somehow produce a higher ‘brix’ (sugar) content? When I was reading about it from the local KY extension site, they mentioned our trees have a much lower concentration in comparison.
So I wonder if you can make alcohol from your syrup? Is that a thing?
I can guess that there are two important factors there. I’m a biologist, but not the plant kind.
First is the tree variety. Sugar maples, which are used in Canada, might naturally produce sap with higher sugar content. (edit: I can’t tell from the bark whether you’re tapping sugar maples. You could probably tap many kinds of trees and produce sap with enough patience; just wanted to comment that in case you were not dealing with maples.)
Second is the climate. The cold might help to concentrate sugar in the sap because of reduced evapotranspiration in the winter time. There needs to be a little bit of water moving in order to draw out sap in the first place, but it needs to be cold enough that the sap is still concentrated. Canada has a long period of cold with mild day time temperatures that sort of fits the bill, from February until the thaw in April-ish.
This is guesswork on my part, to be clear. Although I don’t know the KY climate, I would safely guess that Canada’s cold season is longer and colder which may have something to do with it.
I know you don’t have children but since you’re DIYing your food a little bit I just wanted to point this out, as well:
Honey != syrup, but I’d caution against it anyway.
I have a Makita Electric Pole saw with three speed selector. It us the dual battery setup to make sure you have all of the torque that you need. Makita offers a dual battery setup for all of their yard and landscaping equipment. You have a choice of 2.0Ah - 5.0Ah batteries.
We’ve had an unseasonably warm March overall this year, which has allowed me and my husband to get out early to complete some projects before planting season begins in earnest. The biggest one of these is finally getting our raised beds set up.
We bought concrete blocks back in the Fall but the soil was too cool and wet for us to do much with them at the time. Now that it’s warming up + we have been blessed with the power of the rototiller (long may it reign), we were able to dig to begin work on our first raised bed. I didn’t get a ton of pics of the early stages, but it’s mainly just:
A few people asked me whether I’d try hugelkulture gardening and this is my attempt at that. We had a lot of blown down sticks and limbs from the ice storms this winter so the bottom layer of the bed is mostly that. I also mixed in a lot of maple and oak leaves that had collected around our garage. This was a nice way to lower the cost for filling + the organic materials should break down over time to help fertilize the bed slowly.
Once I had a good base layer of sticks/leaves/fill dirt, I added compost on top and mixed til the bed was filled almost to the top. Some of the compost came from my personal tumbler, though I did have to buy a couple bags to make sure I got enough coverage. I also added a bit of old potting mix that I had overwintering in the garage.
First plants! Spinach and romaine lettuce starts on one side; the other is dedicated to radishes but they haven’t sprouted yet.
And of course, after a month of warm temps, we’re due for frosts the next few days, so I had to improvise a redneck frost cover. This is just rebar tucked into the blocks with thin PVC pipe fitted across. I probably should’ve gotten a shorter length…
AND if you think it couldn’t get any worse, let me show you the actual covers… These are just painter drop cloths held on with chip clips and spare rocks. It’s technically not a real cover but it should keep the seedlings warm enough in the cold. And that’s what matters.
This one bed is large enough to fit a quite a bit which is great. We still have a ton of blocks though, and I’m hoping we can get at least one more done before summer planting in May.
Earlier in the month I decided I’d try to start seeds indoors. I’ve usually bought starts from greenhouses in the past but it felt like it was time to level up and start learning to do it from scratch. I planted lettuce and spinach seeds, hooked up a grow light, and waited. It started off well enough:
But after they germinated, these little seeds wilted and died as suddenly as they sprang up. After doing some reading I suspect they may have ‘dampened off’. I was misting them twice a day and in hindsight I probably could’ve done that once a day (or even every other day). A lesson learned! I didn’t put all my eggs in this basket luckily.
I had some extra seeds after my indoor seed starting adventure, so as usual I chaotically sowed some outdoors along with some onion starts because WHY NOT. I didn’t really expect them to sprout at all, but I was surprised to find some lettuce seedlings poking through today?!?
They’re even pushing through the woodchips, which is amazing for how tiny they are. The onions haven’t even poked out yet and these guys are out here putting them to shame. I will have to cover them before those frosts though…
Moar Blueberries Bushes?
Wildflowers and sunflowers?
A tire swing…? 
