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The Sweet Taste of Success
The buckets on maple trees that used to signal the start of maple syrup season have been replaced with 3.3 miles of tubing, but the end result – sweet, delicious maple syrup – remains the same.
The heart of ESF's maple syrup production can be found in Heiberg Memorial Forest, Tully. With 23 acres of sugar maples, 2,350 taps collected the sap that produced 833 gallons of syrup. "This year, we averaged one gallon of syrup for every 52 gallons of sap," said Jill Rahn, Forest Properties senior staff assistant.
ESF is a member of the New York State Maple Producers Association. "We took part in their Maple Weekend event and hosted two Saturday open houses, which we referred to as Syrup Saturdays," said Rahn. "We partnered with the folks from Experiential Learning and Outreach to develop programming to teach the public – and some ESF folks — about the science behind how maple syrup is produced at Heiberg Forest. Special thanks to Maura Stefl, Jake O'Connell, Mike Rosenthal, John Drake and Sue Anagnost for helping us put this event together."
Syrup Saturdays introduced Lug Your Jug to syrup lovers. People brought their own containers — 16-ounce mason jars — to be filled with maple syrup for $10. "It was a big hit," said Rahn. "We filled 67 pints of maple syrup over the two days."
Lug Your Jug will be available for the annual pancake breakfast May 4 (see events listing for details).