The weather is getting warmer, the mud is deep, and the sap is running. For those of us who are done with winter, the mud is a welcome sign; even if it means that there is a chance my car might get stuck on the way to a local sugar house.
I grew up with the good stuff, and there will be no fake maple syrup in my house at any time. My grandfather had a sugar house, I grew up going to friends' sugar houses, my co-workers have sugar houses, my husband's birthday carrot cake will be made with maple syrup (not molasses), Little Man will grow up knowing how amazing fresh syrup tastes, end of story.
For those of you who did not grow up in the North, here is the process:
You tap your local maple tree (or your local several thousand trees - Vermont made 890,000 gallons of maple syrup last year: it's coming from more than that one tree!) and let the sap drip into the bucket below. The low-tech version means someone goes around to each tree and empties the bucket; modern-day people run lines from tree to tree and feed it back to the sugar house. 
Once the sap has made it to the sugar house, the water is boiled out of it, creating a sweet smelling mist in the air. Some poor fella has to keep everything hot by throwing wood into the fire under the arch (the boiling thingy) every five minutes. The best place to be on a cold day is in the sugar house...of course that probably also means the sap is not running and frozen in the lines.
Then comes the best part.........
Pour the hot maple syrup on snow (or in this case crushed ice) and enjoy.
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