Enjoy Maple Season Before It's Over!  by Mandy Major | Comments
It all started with my first trip to Vermont last October. As
expected, the foliage was gorgeous, the people friendly and the
covered bridges fascinating. But it was the maple syrup that
really caught my attention. After surveying the local syrups and
taking a trip through the old-timey New England Maple Museum, I
came back armed and appreciative, at peace with the $45 per
gallon price tag.  Sugaring, as maple syrup harvesting is
called, only happens for several weeks a year in the Northeast
(and Canada, which is the world's largest producer; Vermont is
the largest in the U.S). It's a special time of year—from late
February to mid-April—when Mother Nature has a foot in each
season, routinely freezing and thawing, causing all that
delicious sap to start flowing. It takes nearly eight hours to
fill one pail with sap, and 50 gallons of sap to produce one
gallon of finished maple syrup.  Producing that gallon is
laborious; after the sap is collected