Today was a typical late February day.The morning was cool, but by mid-day the sun, with its increasingly higher angle, warmed the air. The birds were singing, the snow was melting, and something else very relevant started happening. Like lumbering giants awakening from their winter slumber, the maple trees are stretching and in doing so, their blood is beginning to flow.

To be sure, it is a trickle now, but as the days grow longer in the next two weeks, their veins will be coursing with the life-giving sap, required by the buds in desperate need to open up and to begin collecting sunlight. Like every spring,they offer excess to those industrious enough and timely enough to be prepared. No one has accused us of not being industrious, and I believe that we are on time this year. Our taps are in for our small operation, and within a week, we expect to be boiling down the sap 24hours/day for about two weeks.

During this time, we will make ourentire year's supply of maple syrup. For all of this work, we canexpect between seven and twelve gallons of finished syrup. This willbe the direct result of collecting and boiling down between 280 andabout 500 gallons on raw sap. The process is time consuming andgrueling at times, and yet, when we pour the golden brown nectar on astack of pancakes or a scoop of vanilla ice cream, all of this isforgotten.