[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]