Cooper Maple started as a fun project to try during our daughter’s spring break from school back in 2008 . We had purchased the farm now known as Cooper Maple in 2005. Our new property had been a managed wood lot of sugar maples for the past 100 years.

One spring afternoon I was walking around one section of the property that had what was left of an old stone foundation. Scattered around the area I found a number of rusted metal buckets and a large rusted maple syrup evaporator pan. Further investigation revealed that I had stumbled upon the remnants of an old sugar house, probably used to make maple syrup and sugar during the late 1800’s through early 1900’s.

During the 2008 maple syrup season, which lasts, depending on the weather, from late February to early April, we visited a local maple syrup farm that also sold maple syrup making equipment -- I was hooked. The thought of drilling a hole in a tree, and turning what ran out into an all natural and superb tasting product peaked my interest. Of course, any natural resource that sells for upwards of sixty dollars a gallon is going to get my attention. We purchased eight sap buckets with lids and spouts, a hydrometer with testing cup, and a dozen glass bottles shaped like a maple leaf.

At the suggestion of my new friend the maple syrup farmer, I went to a local home store and purchased a stainless steel turkey fryer, a 20 gallon propane tank and a rectangular stainless steel pan. Our back yard has an old hand laid stone fireplace that would work as a make-shift arch for boiling the sap gathered in the eight buckets we'd purchased. My guess is that our fireplace was probably used by someone in the past to boil sap because that pan I bought fit perfectly.

We tapped eight trees and waited…and waited...and waited for the sap to flow. Maple sap flows when the temperature dips below freezing at night and then warms up during the day. By late morning we had gathered enough sap to start boiling.

I started a hot fire and situated the rectangular pan containing the fresh sap directly over the fire. We boiled all day and as the sap thickened we transferred the sweet smelling goodness to the turkey fryer for finishing.

This slow, labor intensive process went on for 7 days, all day, and we loved it. We ended up with a gallon of fancy grade maple syrup. Obviously the best tasting maple syrup we have ever tasted.

We used the same labor intensive process during the 2009 maple syrup season with good results and at that point decided to take our new hobby to the next level during the 2010 season.

Check out our gallery for pictures of our first two seasons of maple syrup farming.