Sugarin'

Our good friends, Candy and Mary and their boys, Carlos and Luis, invited us to their house for pancakes and fresh maple syrup. Candy tapped trees for the first time and was just figuring out how sugarin' works, but we had fun watching her efforts. This year, with the weather being so crazy, has been an odd year for sugarin'. Lots of people didn't even bother tapping trees this year as it needs to be warm during the day and cool at night, but it never got really cool enough at night to produce as much sap as usual. Candy gave it a whirl and it was well worth her effort. The syrup was delicious!
Here is the sap boiling. Lots of sap = a very little amount of syrup:

Tasting the syrup:

Straining the sap before the final boiling which took place on the stove:

The kids played and played and played while the sap boiled. It is a loooooong process:

Man, I wish I had pictures of them eating the pancakes. They were delicious!