NEW HAVEN, NY – The tradition of boiling maple sap to produce maple syrup is a treasured ritual for the families who eagerly await the arrival of early spring so that they can dust off their equipment and get busy once again.
The anticipation builds as firewood is gathered and the sugar house is cleaned, while bottles and cans are prepared for filling and labeling.
“My father and grandfather always made maple syrup,” said Joe Yardley. “I bought my first evaporator when I was ten years old.”
Yardley operates Yardley Maple with his family and friends. The sugarhouse is located on the side of a forested hill, along Oswego County Route 64 in the Town of New Haven.
Yardley said that he loves being in the woods, and that operating a maple business affords him plenty of time to enjoy the forest. The Yardleys start to get excited as the end of winter approaches, but they are soon busy stacking wood and inspecting the lines that connect the many trees, making sure that they are tight and leak free, ready for the first drops of sap to begin making their way to the evaporator.
Yardley feels that the Maple Weekends are a great way for the public to learn about the method of sugaring and to appreciate the amount of work that goes into a small bottle of the sweet, amber liquid.
“It’s good for people to see what it takes to make a gallon of syrup,” Yardley said. “A lot of people don’t realize that sap coming out of a tree is not the finished product.”
Yardley said that it is always good to raise awareness of the maple industry, and that visiting sugarhouses is just a great family activity. He said that he enjoys seeing the families arrive and learn about the tradition.
“It’s awesome; it makes me feel good to see people getting excited about something that I get excited about,” Yardley said. “We are in here alone for a lot of the season, and it is great to see them come in here and learn about something that we find enjoyable.”
Longer days and freezing nights signal the beginning of another sugar boiling season for the many maple producers across Oswego County. Temperatures that rise above the freezing point and then go below 32 freezing overnight trigger the sap to rise up from the roots of the Sugar Maple tree (Acer Saccharum), allowing the collection of the watery liquid, which can then be gathered and boiled to concentrate the sugar.
The sap comes from the tree as a solution that is 98 percent water and 2 percent sugar, so producers must collect a large amount of the slightly sweet liquid to make the effort worthwile. One gallon of syrup is concentrated from about 40 gallons of sap.
This weekend, March 26-27, marks the final Maple Weekend of 2022 in Oswego County. Here is a list of Maple producers in Oswego County: https://bdwebdesigns.wixsite.com/lc-maple-producers/oswego-county
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