It’s maple syrup time

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CORNWALL – As the temperatures warm, the sap inside the maple tree starts to rise. And when the trees are tapped, the sap is collected to make syrup.

 After boiling 40-43 gallons of sap, a gallon of the sweet syrup, great in candy, on waffles, pancakes, ice cream and in even coffee, is ready to be happily consumed.

  The tradition is being demonstrated by the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum through the end of March with trail walks though the maples and to the sugar shacks, where the sap, which is two percent sugar and 98 percent water, is boiled down to syrup.

 Carl Heitmuller has helped educate the public here for more than a quarter century, and he said the last couple of weeks, so far, have not been ideal for collecting sap.

“So far no. We had that Arctic cold.  You want the sap to run around 40 (degrees) and freezing at night, so you get that difference in pressure, the expansion when the sap runs,” he said. “When it does run, it runs for a week or two, and it runs heavy.”

  The sap season runs for four to six weeks from the middle of February to the end of March, and the tours at the museum help you identify a tree and how the sap is made through photosynthesis. 

“The sugar we are collecting was from last year in the summer. It shuts down and stores the sugar into the root system,” he said.  “And now it pulls the water up into the tree, goes over the sugar and becomes sap.”

 When the sugar content is high enough, tree buds open up in early spring and allow for the photosynthesis to help following year’s flow of sap.

 “It’s only a short season in which you can collect it,” he said.

 Temperatures will warm early this week, reaching the 60s by Wednesday with cool or cold evenings – which will ensure the sap should flow heavier during the next couple of days.

  The tours started Saturday and continued Sunday. More tours are scheduled this coming weekend, February 26, 27 and on weekends in March 5,6 and 12,13 and 19, 20.

  The museum is located on 120 Muser Drive, off Angola Road in Cornwall. For more information, call 845-534-5506.




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