West Coast maple Syrup?

In April last year, my daughter and family bought a home south of Seattle with about 2 acres of mostly native trees. Bigleaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum) is well represented amoung the species present and quite a few of them are large, mature trees with diameters in excess of 20 inches, and a few are larger than 30 inches. Below is an image of one of the larger maples, with leaves in golden brown color of fall. A closer look at the leaves shows the typical shape of foliage of members of this family of trees. And older granddaughter Railey holding a single leaf shows quite well how this maple species got its name "Bigleaf". A quick search of the literature of this species indicated that they produce sap that can be boiled down into syrup, although there does not seem to be any commercial use of the trees for this product as there is for Sugar maple in the northeast US. With my penchant for delving into new pastimes, I began to think that maybe it would be interesting to see what maple syrup production involved. The supplies required seem to be readily available from internet sites so that does not seem to be much of an obstacle. But the fact that it takes about 35-40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup leads me to believe that this will not be a simple undertaking. Boiling away that much liquid inside my daughters' home - in a geographic area know for relatively high humidities - might put a strain on our relationship. So if this experiment is to take place, I'm going to have to figure out a way to do the boiling at an outdoor location near the house. The abundant wood on the property should provide a more than adequate fuel supply, but what sort of container for the sap boiling process would work best and how will I support it over a wood fire - without too much of an investment? If I decide to proceed with this effort, will it be cost effective? Certainly not! Will it be fun? Don't know yet. Will I have any help from family? Sure hope so! Will the resulting syrup be edible? Better be!!

Granddaughter Taylin will be one year old this coming February. That should give Kathy and me good reason to head out Seattle way from a likely frozen Montana landscape. Is February an appropriate time to tap maple trees in the Pacific Northwest? That will take a little more research.

Stay tuned for a potential new chapter in my prime years of retirement!