It's Maple Time! Fight cancer and diabetes with your favorite sweet stuff.

We've had a few warm days here and the maple sap is really running. I collected over 5 gallons, and today I anticipate just as much. I tapped fewer trees this year, just 5, but it looks like we are getting just as much sap. I boiled down half the haul in three hours yesterday and made a pint of perfect syrup. This morning I am rendering the rest down. Of course, it's still really cold out, so I can't have too many open windows to let out the steam -- I have the front door cracked open and my window box, too, in the kitchen. And of course I am running the wood stove as usual, making it super warm and toasty in the house.

Last year I used all gallon jugs to collect the sap from the trees, which works great when the sap is slower, but not so much when you're getting over a gallon a day. So this year I am using buckets on the biggest producing trees -- three of the trees are right on a small stream's banks, and they run like crazy.

For more info about Maple tapping, check out my previous blogpost: http://healinggreen.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-do-you-juice-tree.html

In the year since my last maple post, it's also come out in scientific journals that Maple Syrup fights bacterial infections, inhibits cancer growth and contains natural acids that benefit diabetes and other metabolic disorders. So eat up, and as always, ENJOY <3