Nothing but Sap, Fire and Love

Lift four gallons of sap (in a 5-gallon bucket).
Pour through filters into another bucket.
Lift this same four gallons of sap
and pour into the evaporator.
If the evaporator is full, pour into holding barrel.

By the end of a good run, we've usually lifted and poured three-times-over more than 100 gallons of sap.

It looks just like water yet has a wonderful flavor of sweetness.
And, that's all it is...water and minerals of the earth turned to sugar.

We add heat.

Lots of heat.

It boils all day and all night. The water is evaporated back into the atmosphere. It takes 24 hours to evaporate 100 gallons of sap into about 10 gallons that is then ready to be transferred into the finishing pan, where it is boiled down further until it becomes about 3 gallons of maple syrup.

If you take the syrup and heat to a certain temperature, remove and stir until the color changes, then pour into molds, it becomes maple candy. If you heat it further it will become a fine powdery substance - maple sugar.

We gather around the kitchen like kids entralled by the process that's happening before our eyes.

We are not doing this the high-volume factory way. We're in intimate communion with the sugar maple trees on the property, with the sap they give us. We collect by hand. Pour by hand. We're with the sap through the entire process. It's not just another bottle of maple syrup to us. It's something we've poured ourselves into, given up normal night's sleep to be with, allowed our bodies to ache from pouring gallons upon gallons of sap.

And we wouldn't have it any other way.

The parents and children of the school who we've shared this process with are amazed that all it takes to make maple syrup is sap from the trees and a heat source -- nothing else is added.

Except when we make it there's one added ingredient...

Love.