Motschwiller Maple

My dad always wanted to make maple syrup. We bought him a kit in 2013, but it sat unused for years—sugaring requires weeks in Vermont, and we could never find the time.

Then came March 2021. Stuck in Vermont during COVID, I finally tried the kit. Within days, I realized we needed way more sap. By season's end, we'd bought our first buckets and boiled our tiny crop on a camp stove.

Five seasons later, we've built (and rebuilt) sugar sheds, upgraded to a reverse osmosis machine, and gone from 1 gallon to over 20. Friends come up to help carry sap through the woods. The shed has caught fire more than once. We've burned our biggest batches. But every spring, we're back out there—because this is what we do now.