Caledonia Maple Association Featured Member

Kirby Mountain Maple

The Wood Family has been sugaring for five generations, carrying on a deeply rooted farming tradition that was discovered by Native Americans long before Europeans settled in America. As spring approaches in Vermont, the days bring warmer temperatures and thawing snow while the nights freeze hard and cold; the saps starts to run and sugarmakers rush to collect the sweet liquid in buckets or tubing to be boiled down into pure, delicious maple syrup.

The sugaring season typically starts in February or March, and is the origin of February vacation for school children in Vermont, who help tap the sugarbush and relish the possibility that they might stay up late for a long boil into the night. The season is a frenzy of activity until April, when spring has brought enough warmth to prevent the nighttime freeze. As the sap flow ends, sugarmakers close up the sugarhouse, pull taps and wash out tubing and buckets, and get to work on the many off-season tasks that ensure the woodshed is full and the arch is ready for next year's first boil.