Climate Wisconsin

[sap dripping into bucket] - Kat Becker: Tony makes pancakes almost 300 days a year.

Really, that's not a joke.

– Tony Schultz: She told me she daydreamed about having a farm.

I said, "Well, I have a farm," and so the romantic idea of the family farm became all the more romantic.

Stoney Acres Farm is a third-generation family farm located in Athens, Wisconsin.

We've tapped trees for between 75 and 80 years, since my grandfather homesteaded this place, and we've always tapped in the maple grove.

– Becker: Maple syrup season really only takes between five to seven weeks total, but it's something that ushers in the beginning of farming season for us.

– Schultz: I love the tradition of it.

It's this rite of seasonal passage, and it's the advent of the coming of spring.

– Becker: Maple syrup season takes place because these trees are starting to break dormancy, and in that process, they're taking up water through their roots and then stored sugar from the winter in their root system, so what's ideal is that the tree is starting to bring the sugars from the roots up, but it doesn't get all of those sugars all the way up the tree, and then if the temperature drops at night, that liquid falls back down and the sugars fall back down.

I'm still amazed that sugar can come out of there.

It's kind of a dance, and that's one of the nicest things about maple syrup season is both tapping and collecting; that you have usually three to five people if not a few more working together, and eventually, after shouting at each other and trying to figure out where everyone's supposed to go, you kind of recognize the pattern that everybody's walking through in the woods and you take your own little areas and move as an independent person, but kind of coordinated with these people to collect sap.

– Schultz: We call it "boiling down" or "cooking down," and the boil-down takes place after we bring all the sap to the shack.

We fire up a big stove and keep constant hot fire going for many hours at a time, and cook down the sap.

It takes about 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup.

This year, it may end up being the worst maple syrup season we've ever had in the history of us making maple syrup because of the dramatic temperature change and dramatic warm-up that has taken place in the past week.

[gentle music] Weather is the key part of the process-- the changing of the season, trees coming out of dormancy, and how weather signals them to do that.

The daily fluctuation of temperature from 20 or 25 at night to 45 to 50 during the day is why maple syrup season happens.

I love it for the same reason that I love my family farm.

It's because it's my home, it's what we've always done, and then I love sweet things.

[gentle music]