Our mild winter allowed for early production of the best thing on earth - pure maple syrup! This year we (and many other maple producers) tapped and boiled earlier than we ever have. Our season started with our first anticlimactic boil on February fourth. It was nice to have the pans sweetened before boiling 12 hours the following day, but that first boil always feels long and slow, lucky if we are even close to drawing off any syrup. By the end of the evening the syrup pans were finally starting to get some color and that wonderful sweet smell started to fill the sugar house.
This is always a special time of year for me. My husband and I had our
first date in the sugar house and I often tease him about which I fell
in love with first - sugaring or him. There's something about the
boiling though, actually making the syrup, that I really love. There is no greater sight this time of year than steam billowing from the cupola. The sweet maple aroma that lingers in the sugar house is so enticing. There is nothing that compares to the taste of hot maple syrup right out of the spigot. It is just really exciting making something so natural and
pure that also tastes so decadent.
With our added taps this year, along with the added dry line on our vacuum line, there are times we are inundated with sap; making it hard to keep up. That means plenty of long days and nights in the sugar house. Late nights often include jumping jacks, singing (horribly) along to the radio, eating vanilla ice cream or plain donuts with warm maple syrup, and downing tons of caffeine - all to stay awake until we are out of sap and can shut down the evaporator.
We welcome visitors anytime that we are boiling! Be sure to visit us for our open sugar house weekends, Saturdays and Sundays 10am-3pm, March 12th and 13th, March 19th and 20th, March 26th and 27th, and April 2nd and 3rd. Come watch us boil, learn the process of making maple syrup, sample our yummy maple syrup and other maple products, and enter our free raffle to win maple products! We hope to see you!
