Kate Headley

I just spent the week on a bucket-list shoot: photographing & filming my Grandfather tapping maple trees and making maple syrup in his ‘sugar shack’ on our family farm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan ...in summary, when the days get warmer in the spring and nights are still cold, the sap runs. My Grandpa has been collecting it for 50+ years and is pictured here at 82 years young. The sap looks like water and has a mild flavor (my nephews pictured here said it was like bubbly water). We gathered about 10-20 gallons of sap a day, filter it (through old dish towels) and boiled it for 3 hours. When he goes inside, he monitors it in his iPhone (see last slide). Now for the crazy fact: Ten gallons of sap boiled down yields just a quart/jar of maple syrup!!! We of course ate lots of pancakes and syrup to celebrate the start of spring