Drip, Drip, Drip

Yes, those drips are from the sound of melting snow as the days up here in Vermont begin to warm up above freezing. But, March is sugar season, and even more important, that is the sound of the sap slowing seeping out of the maple trees through the taps, and into the many buckets hanging all over the state. 

Sap dripping into the bucket

This is a special time of year. People emerge after a long winter to join together with friends, neighbors and family to gather this sap, haul it down to the tractor, dump it out at the sugar house and boil it down to make Maple Syrup. Wednesday afternoon we headed out into the woods with about 10 other people and worked our way down the logging trail behind our house looking for this:

A bucket with sap in it

We empty this into pails and carry it down to the holding tank on the tractor. We have about 500 of these buckets hanging from maple trees around our little neighborhood, and it takes about an hour and a half to gather it all up, depending on how full the buckets are and how many people are helping. 

Buckets hanging on the Maples

Then we take it all back to the sugar house, and start the boiling process until the watery sap slowly turns into maple syrup. We live in this amazing neighborhood of about 4 close families who do this all together, then split the bottles of syrup between us all. Plus, we enlist the aid of nearby friends and family to help. We hang out in the warm, humidity talking, eating, drinking, sometimes dancing to the music that is playing, and having a good time until people slowly head for home. Sometimes they stop boiling early, and sometimes, if there has been a lot of sap, they will go until 11pm or later. This weekend looks like there will be a few late nights. The sap runs best when the temperature drops down into the upper 20's at night, then warms up close to 40° during the day. And if the sun is out, that is even better. Looks like it will be a good run for the next couple of days.

My son-in-law down in Maryland is a little sad that he may not make it up here this year to help. He has come for the past three years, since their wedding in 2010. But he just took 2 weeks of vacation to go to Honduras, and isn't sure he can take more vacation to come this year. He loves sugar season and hanging out in the sugar house with the guys. They may try to come up around Easter, and would hope the sap is still running, but they also have this little guy to think about:

Our beautiful grandson!

And his furry friend:

And its a very long 10 hour drive one way. So I understand well what a challenge it is to come up here. 

I will try to take some pictures of the sugar house to post on here over the weekend. We will go on daylight savings time on Sunday, which means it will be lighter out when we finish gathering and start boiling. The sugar house looks amazing when all that steam is pouring out of the top. And this is being repeated all over Vermont. It is the sign of the transition from winter to the warmer days of spring, when the maple trees begin to bud and the sap stops running. It is the sweet reward for the end of the long nights of winter.