Sugaring Season Underway

Riding along a country road early in the evening I stopped to capture a few of the old fashioned sap buckets hanging from two hard maple trees. After enough sap is collected day after day then the boiling down (sugaring) process begins for making maple syrup or candy.
This is a sure sign of spring in the 'north country'. A hole is drilled in the tree and a plug is inserted then the colorless sap drops into the bucket, usually during the day when the weather is warming up. When the weather gets too consistently warm the sap stops running and starts developing into green tree leaves.
We are still quite cold (not up to freezing) here so the collecting will go on for a while. The icebergs have not entirely melted from my front deck or garden.