The Sap is Rising

Sure, most of us have enjoyed pure maple syrup on our pancakes, or the sweet crunch of maple sugar candy. But did you know?

•It takes 30-50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup
•Maple syrup is boiled even further to produce maple cream, maple sugar, and maple candy.
•It takes one gallon of maple syrup to produce eight pounds of maple candy or sugar
•A gallon of maple syrup weighs 11 pounds
•The sugar content of sap averages 2.5 percent; sugar content of maple syrup is at least 66 percent or more
•Usually a maple tree is at least 30 years old and 12 inches in diameter before it is tapped
•As the tree increases in diameter, more taps can be added - up to a maximum of four taps
•Tapping does no permanent damage and only 10 percent of the sap is collected each year. Many maple trees have been tapped for 150 or more years.

Now that you have read some of the many facts about maple syrup, we can talk.  Every year in the fall the sap inside the maple trees, makes it way down the tree.  Well that same sap begins to raise in the late winter and early spring.  Here in the South the rising sap has so many different meanings. 

Every year everyone in the South looks forward to the Spring.  This year it is especially true, as we have had some really cold weather this winter.  We love the plant in our gardens, and in fact my husband always starts our garden on Good Friday.  He says this is the best time to plant.  The birds return and sing out side my bedroom window.  But the best part is I don't have to drive to work in the dark, and it doesn't get dark at 5 p.m.  Apparently, the spring is the onset of many things..things I never even realized until last week. 

One day about 4 years ago sitting around the teachers lunch table, one of the teachers said, oh you can tell the sap is beginning to rise.  I of course didn't think much of this other than Spring was on it's way. 

Well, just the other day at school, again sitting around the teachers lunch table, one of our paraprofessionals ( very nice, sweet, southern, older woman) we had been discussing how the behavior of the students was just really going south.... This very nice, very sweet, southern older woman turns and says..."I can only imagine what it is going to be like when the sap gets to rise'n." 

 Then it dawned on me...not only does the full moon, or windy days have an effect on students behavior, but the sap rising does also.. And in middle school...it has a whole different conotation.  Let's just say if it had an effect on smiling Bob from the enzite commercials, he probably would not need his enzite or viagra.   And of course this Northern chic, who was raised in South Florida, (which I told you before is just New York and New Jersey relocated south), had no clue in the 6 years I have been in Georgia..that this is what was meant by "when the sap gets to rise'n".    I love Spring and look forward to it every year.