Sugar Snow
A sap house is designed exclusively for boiling maple tree sap until it turns into syrup. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Photo by Jenny Hershberger
I grew up in Northeast Ohio where March is known “to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb”. We usually get one more doozy-of-a-winter snowstorm in March (occasionally creeping into April). After that, we have the intermittent, warmer, light, fluffy, spring snow. Inhibiting the trees from budding. We call that sugar snow. For it leads to an abundance of sweetness.
Maple sap begins to flow when winter starts to tease us with the promise of spring. Some years that is in January. Some years in March. It depends. The longer winter and spring spar, the longer the sap runs. As soon as the trees start to bud, maple season is over.
There is a beautiful balance that has to happen. The weather has to be warm enough to let the sap run. But it can’t stay warm for too long. If it’s warm for too long, the trees will start to bud. So we need the weather to be warm, then cold, then warm, then cold . . . When it snows during those cold snaps, that is sugar snow. Prolonging the sweet maple syrup season.
In case you are in Geauga County, Ohio in the spring, here are some maple highlights:
