A SAPPY STORY
Although Spring hasn’t officially arrived here at Sugar Plum Farm, we can tell that it’s not far away. Something about the angle of the sun, the smell in the air, the chirping of the birds, and of course the arrival of new foals, holds the promise of warmer days ahead.
In the Northeast, one of the signs of Spring, besides the mud, is the appearance of sugaring equipment in the maple stands. We are excited this year at Sugar Plum Farm, to have our maple trees tapped. It’s wonderful to see the tin buckets with their pointed caps hanging from the trees, catching the watery, sweet sap that will be boiled down into maple syrup.
Sugaring requires dedication and hard work. The weather conditions must be ideal, the buckets checked, cleaned and collected daily, and the sap filtered and kept cool and clean until the boiling process begins. The boiling itself is a time consuming and tedious process that must be perfectly executed. The most amazing thing to remember is that each gallon of finished maple syrup requires an average of 40 gallons of sap !!!
