By the end of February each winter we start to go a bit stir crazy. We are tired of the cold, the snow, carrying so much firewood and worrying about the animal's water freezing. However when the first of March rolls around it's usually on a happy note, because I know there is not much time left before we start tapping maple trees for sap.
This year we have been very fortunate, the winter temperatures never got really cold (I think -12° F was the coldest) and we got little snow. This past week has started to feel like spring, and the maple trees got tapped.
My husband loves gathering all the buckets, spiles, drill and bit to begin tapping. Last Saturday he tapped 60 trees and already we are cooking down a lot of sap.
Each night we dump the buckets in to a large barrel which goes back home with us and we dip from it to fill our pots in the house.
We cook all our syrup down in our house on the wood stove and sometimes on the gas stove to finish it off.
The syrup gets used year 'round for baking, cooking, flavoring, sweetening, brewing and snacking (we have been known to eat it with a spoon!)
So I know spring can't be far away...there's a smell of maple in the air!
This post was entered into the "Grow Your Own" roundup, created by Andrea's Recipes and hosted this month by House of Annie.
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