Sweet Goodbye To Winter

25 years ago when our children were small, my husband tapped a few maples on a friends property, and every night in the spring he’d haul home a bucket of sap. We boiled it down in a big kettle on a cinderblock firepit out in the front yard.  The kids would sit around the sweet smelling kettle like it was a campfire.  We only made a gallon or two a year…it was a little dark…and maybe a little bit smoky…but we relished it on our pancakes and waffles every weekend.  Later we moved to a larger piece of land, bought an evaporator, purchased tubing and buckets and put about 75 taps a year into maples right in the front yard. “Stevie’s Saphouse” makes about 14 gallons a year of beautiful amber colored syrup.

Still, it’s pretty hard to beat those memories of campfire lit faces around a boiling pot of sap on the edge of the driveway, and the oft asked question, “Is it syrup yet, Dad?”