MAPLE SUGARING GALLERY

I think the real reason so many people do maple sugaring is that getting something so good out of solid wood is such a cool thing. Furthermore, it's a great opportunity to be outdoors as the weather warms up in early spring. Our homestead is well suited for a large pipeline sap collection system, but we just tap a few trees with the traditional galvanized bucket method. Some years we have sold "sweetwater" (maple sap straight from the tree) to a local restaurant as a seasonal specialty. Sugaring season overlaps with apple pruning season, which overlaps with mushroom inoculation season, which overlaps garden planting and firewood gathering seasons. Thus, we try to make enough maple syrup in a year so that we don't need to do it every year.