Maple Sugar Days

The weekend of the 28th are Maple Sugar Days events. Tours of local Maple producers are on tap for all to see. One of the best is Patterson Maple Products. They produce the most maple syrup in the State of Pennsylvania tapping more than 100,000 trees each year.
My son came down from a conference in Toronto so we went up to Patterson's a week early for the inside scoop. Patterson's is a three generation family owned business. They hire around 14 extra people a year to help with tapping the trees and repairing lines(mostly due to porcupine damage). All the trees are interconnected with a series of plastic tubes that run to large stainless steel tanks. The raw sap is collected from these drums and
brought back to be processed. It takes 43 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. The cost of a gallon of syrup is currently $38 up from last year due to a shortage of syrup the last couple years. The sap is running well this year so they hope to make up some of the shortages if things go well. They tap from mid-Jan to early April depending on the weather. It must be above freezing during the day and below freezing at night to make the sap flow. Once the buds start opening on the trees the sap productions slows to a halt.
The second picture shows their evaporator which operates on fuel oil to heat the sap into syrup. It is definitely a sweet trip for anyone and the Pattersons are very eager to share all the history, knowledge and passion they have for maple syrup production. They are open all year, but now is the time to come if you want to see the operation running.
The Leetonia Road to Cedar Run is open, but caution should remain your guide to crossing a few icy areas. Potholes and road heaves also come fast if you aren't paying attention. Mountain girl, Paula, logging off and tasting maple syrup on my pancakes.