Sweet!

How sweet it is... well at least after they boil down 40 gallons into just one... it's sweet. Know what it is yet?
Here's a hint - they only do this in the spring... NY and VT are "famous" for it. Aunt Jemima's version is completely unpalatable by comparison.
It's maple syrup - being made the all-natural way. Boiled down sap from the sugar maple tree in the spring becomes the amber goodness that tastes unlike any man-made concoction out there.
As the times evolve - so has the process. The farm we visited is trying a new collection technique this year. As opposed to placing taps in trees and hanging a bucked on the tap that requires a visit every day to dump it into a bigger bucket - they now have flexible tubing attached to the taps. This tubing connects the output from over 300 maple trees into a single large collection vessel. They take the sap from there and then bring it into the sugar shack.
In the shack there is another setup that uses as much of the heat generated by a wood fire as it can... the process uses gravity and flows the sap from top to bottom over a series of heating then boiling labyrinths, as the water boiled off in billows of steam, the sap grows denser and more "syrupy"... the denser liquid is pulled farther down the system by gravity and is ultimately removed from the main system via a spigot. The picture above is the steam coming off of the final "first stage" labyrinth (spigot would be on the lower right).
The sap/syrup is then removed from the bottom and placed in a more controlled heating labyrinth - that uses propane for exact temperature control. In the final stage boiling is controlled and the "brewmaster" checks for specific gravity - a measure of sugar content in the syrup - until it's about 66% sugar/33% awesome taste and water. From there it's strained and hot bottled.
This is the only time of year you can see this happen - and if you have never been (it was Kelli's first time) - it's very impressive... and buying a half gallon or more at the farm really helps support your local farmer and local agriculture. (yes I Tweeted about this over the weekend)