By all accounts, it was a good year for syrup - the "sugar snow" that fell on the 11th really got the sap moving and lengthened the sap run (one of the only silver linings to be found on an April blizzard). A friend of ours who bottles commercially says they boiled down 120 gallons of sap this year, when their previous year's total was closer to 80; definitely a significant increase!
Obviously I'm not syruping on that scale, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I surpassed my "break-even" goal of 3 gallons, so I'm happy. Our final total is a little hard to add up, since I gave a quart to my parents (apparently you never grow out of saying, "Mommy, look what I made!"), we had family pancake breakfasts twice (5 kids can go through a lot of syrup!), and two Friday "Brownie and Ice Cream Nights" (their Daddy can eat his fair share, too!) 😉
But when all is said and done, we have 3 1/2 gallons of pure maple goodness sitting on the pantry shelf, which is about what we'd usually buy from a local producer each spring for our year's supply - and all from just 16 trees on our little farmstead. Not a bad return for a few afternoons' "work" sitting around the campfire!
You can read more of my maple syrup making adventures here, here, and here.
That is awesome Ruth! Well Done! And yum yum!
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