Maple syrup "sweets" prepared by John Kelly, ready to be moved to the last stage of boiling.

Photo | Amanda Tsang

"I like being outside, seeing the trees, how they're doing, maybe give them a little pep talk," says John Kelly, making the rounds of maple trees he's tapped for sap, some as old as 200 years. He says this year has been "phenomenal," the sap has been gushing starting in early March.

By March 17, when half the country is downing a pint, Kelly's only nod to the Irish is a green plaid wool shirt. He's thinking this might be the last day of the run.

With tousled gray hair and a big smile, he's on day 14 of waking up at 5 a.m. and going to bed at 10 p.m., trying to gather all he can from more than 200 trees in the short timeframe where the days are above freezing and the nights below. It's this early spring weather pattern, found mainly in North America, that makes the sap run and is why maple syrup is a uniquely American (and Canadian) treat.

The first European settlers learned from Native Americans to gash maple trees and collect the sap. In addition to boiling with hot stones, they used a technique of concentrating the sap by letting it freeze at night — in the morning the ice formed of pure water would be removed and the sap allowed to freeze again. Each time the water ice was removed, the sap became more concentrated.

Now considered an expensive rarity, until the 1800s when slavery and sugar plantations in the Caribbean made cane sugar affordable, maple was the common sweetener in this country, and sugaring off was an annual family activity.

A maple tree needs to be at least 10 inches in diameter, which corresponds with roughly 40 years, before it can safely be tapped. Kelly demonstrates the tapping process on a virgin tree with a cordless drill and a small blue plastic spile — a little tube with a spout on one end.

He says you want to drill with a slight uphill angle about one and a half inches deep, and it's good if you can drill over a nice big root. Look for bright clean wood shavings coming out.

Almost as soon as he pulls out the drill bit, the hole has filled with the sparkle of clear sap. He says the run has been so high this year that even making the rounds twice a day, he can't empty the buckets fast enough.

John Kelly, buckets, sugarbush.

Photo by Amanda Tsang

Big sugarbush places (like Snow's in Mason) may have thousands of trees connected by miles of tubing and a dedicated building with huge boilers and evaporators and high tech reverse osmosis filters. But the Kellys are a literal mom and pop operation, with a little makeshift sugar shack and two tiny and portable wood-fired evaporators going in the driveway.

Kelly says he's learned that to keep a steady boil "the secret is to cram as much wood as you can in there — it really goes quick. We're about to start breaking up the furniture for wood."

On one side the filtered sap is boiled about halfway to the syrup stage. Then Kelly takes out a bucket full of what he calls the "sweets" and transfers it to the other evaporator billowing steam.

He'll boil it down the rest of the way and then take it inside where his wife, Jane, does more filtering and bottling in glass jars. The 60 gallons of syrup they'll make are all boiled down by hand from 3,000 gallons of sap they've collected one bucket at a time.

When I asked Kelly about the effort involved, he quoted a Vermont farmer: "It's no more work than it ever was, and it's a shame to let it go to waste."

Starting in early summer, Jane Kelly will take bottles that say "The Kelly's Pure Michigan Maple Syrup" to sell at the Dexter Farmers Market.

Kelly's Maple Syrup

Kim Bayer | Contributor

And of course when you've got maple syrup, nothing tastes better than pancakes.

Grampa Bayer's Good Breakfast Pancakes

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 egg
1 tablespoon oil
3/4 cup milk

Mix well. If batter needs more liquid, add water. Makes 6-8 pancakes.

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Kelly buys his maple sugaring tools from Sugarbush Supplies in Mason, Michigan (though some are also available at the Dexter Mill)
http://www.sugarbushsupplies.com

Vermontville, Mich. Maple Syrup Festival - April 29 through May 1, 2011
http://www.vermontvillemaplesyrupfestival.org/index.htm

From the Michigan Maple Syrup Association
http://www.mi-maplesyrup.com/

• Michigan ranks fifth in maple syrup production in the United States.
• Average maple syrup production in Michigan is about 90,000 gallons per year.
• There are an estimated 500 commercial maple syrup producers in Michigan, with some 2,000 additional hobby or home use producers.
• The production of pure maple syrup is the oldest agricultural enterprise in the United States.
• Maple syrup is one of the few agricultural crops in which demand exceeds supply.
• Only about 1 percent of Michigan’s maple forest resource is used in maple syrup production.
• It takes approximately 40 gallons of maple sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup.
• A gallon of standard maple syrup weighs 11 pounds and has a sugar content of 66 percent.
• Maple syrup is the first farm crop to be harvested in Michigan each year.
• Maple syrup is not the recipient of any crop support or subsidy programs.

Kim Bayer is a freelance writer and culinary researcher. Email her at kimbayer@gmail.com.