Finding Tree Sap (Part 3)

After we made our agreement, Becca quickly returned with a bucket in her hands. As she got closer, she called out, "Hey Nick, I just saw Helen coming from this direction. Did she come to bother you?"

"Haha, kind of, but in the end I convinced her to join us in the kitchen when we try to make syrup. This way we can have fun together and convince Helen to give us her blessing."

Becca looked a little worried. "Nick, even if no one gives us their blessing, it doesn't matter to me."

"I know, but the more the merrier. I hope all the people who are precious to you will be happy that we are together. Now, I see that you found a bucket, but I can't see what you found to be a metal cylinder. Did you find something good?"

Becca scrunched up her lips. "I found something that I think will work for today as a makeshift measure. We should probably make a blueprint and get my Father's help later if we can perfect the syrup recipe."

"Sounds good. So what did you find for now? I'm curious."

Becca grabbed a steel pipe out of the bucket she was carrying. "So here is a standard steel pipe that I found laying around the house. The problem is that the edge is blunt, so it will be hard to cut through the tree bark with it. That's why I also grabbed this hammer to help force it through the bark. It won't be perfect, but I think it work for today. Too bad our lightning and water magic can't really do blunt force."

"I think your right. This should work for as long as we don't break the pipe itself. Hopefully we will only need one bucket of tree sap to figure out how to make syrup. Then, I can draw a sketch of a tree tap tomorrow to show your Father."

Becca grabbed my hand and started to pull me along. "Every day is a new fun experience with you, Nick! Today I get to do something that no one in this world has tried before!"

Becca's enthusiasm put a smile to my face. I too was excited to try bringing common everyday things from my world to this world. Simple things I used to take for granted would greatly improve the lives of the people here. It was up to me to be able to recreate and bring these things to the people. Luckily, I studied to be an engineer and knew a little bit about making blueprints and how to build things.

Once we arrived at the trail, we walked to the closest maple tree and I grabbed the metal pipe and hammer. "Alright…I'm going to give it a go. Becca, be ready with the bucket if the tree sap starts dripping out too fast."

Becca gave me a thumbs up. "I'm ready when you are Nick!"

I held the pipe with my left hand and placed it on the trunk of a tree. Then, I started hammering the pipe with my right hand. At first, I hit it with only about 25% strength because I didn't want to break the pipe. However, it wasn't enough to break through the tree bark, so I started to increase the force. Still nothing happened after several hits and I was starting to worry that the metal pipe would not work. I decided to start using my full force and after a couple of hits, the metal pipe went in 3/4 of its length. It was about 6 inches and I was expecting to see some sap coming out, but nothing was coming out yet. After a few minutes of waiting, I was feeling dejected.

"Hmm…I'm not sure what the problem is… maybe this tree is just not ready to give sap."

On the side, Becca gave her opinion. "Nick, I think maybe you went too deep into the tree. For some reason, when you explained how trees had sap inside, I imagined that pockets of sap would accumulate near the outer layer of the tree."

Becca's guess was definitely possible, so I started to pull on the pipe to try to get it out of the tree. After a while of struggling, I finally removed it. Immediately after the pipe was removed, tree sap started to accumulate. Becca quickly came with the bucket and collected a few large drops of liquid.

Looking at the large hole in the tree, I noticed that there were two distinct colored layers in the tree with the outside layer being the only layer that had sap coming out. "Your thought process was right Becca! Look how the outer layer is the only part where the sap leaks from!"

Becca smiled brightly at my praise. "It was just a lucky guess, but I'm happy I was helpful."

Looking at the bucket that was collecting sap, there was actually a lot less sap than I expected. I soon realized the problem was that the sap was collecting in the hole the pipe created and staying in the hole instead of dripping out. I quickly moved next to Becca and grabbed the bucket.

"Hey Becca, take the pipe and hammer and try to get the pipe into the correct layer. I think the pipe will help speed up the sap collection process as it has less surface area for the sap to go through. I'll try to get as much sap as I can out of this hole and into the bucket before you get the pipe in."

Becca was a little surprised. "You want me to do it? I'm not as strong as you, Nick…"

I couldn't help laugh at Becca's reluctance. "Haha, obviously I was a little too strong for my own good because I hit the pipe way too far into the tree. You have better control than me, so I'm sure you will be able to do it. Plus, it's fun to hammer things in. I want you to give it a try."

Becca rolled up her sleeves. "Alright, I will do my best."

I rolled my eyes sarcastically. "No need to be so serious. You already get one free mess up since I messed up already."

"Nick, you didn't mess up! We just didn't know any better yet. It's all about trail and error!"

"Haha, you are right about that! Now go give it a try."

While Becca was busy finding the right strength to make the perfect sized hole, I brought the bucket up to the big hole I created and started to use my finger to get the stuck sap to start falling into the bucket. It was a sticky mess, but I wanted to get a bucket of sap as quick as possible, so we had plenty of time to experiment in the kitchen today.

After I release the first amount of sap, it needed a while to accumulate more. As I was waiting, Becca called out, "I got it, Nick! It's starting to drip sap!"

"Ok, I'm coming!"

I quickly brought the bucket over to the other side of the tree where Becca made the hole. The bucket was already about 1/4 full. We were making some good progress.