The art of making maple syrup is a delicate balance.

An art form that requires balancing multiple variables, sometimes completely out of your control.

"So the entire process, the windows of opportunity are completely weather dependent. We look forward 4 to 6 weeks in the season to see when we will hit that sweet spot in temperature. That long-term forecast drives when we will tap the trees," says John Slanina, a member of the Rocky Ridge Neighborhood Association. 

In order to get the most out of these trees, the sweet spot must be hit; that's when temperatures are above freezing during the day, and below freezing at night allowing the trees to recharge and maximize sap production. Another meteorological variable key for maple syrup producers is snowpack, something we saw for over 20 days this winter and a key difference from last year to this year.

"That moisture is what goes into the roots, it's what supplies the sap as it reaches this time of the year. if you remember last year people were happy we had a mild winter, but for us making maple syrup that resulted in a pretty dry ground," says Slanina. 

John is one of the members of the Rocky Ridge Neighborhood Association, a group of volunteers that spends the winters tapping the over 100 sweet maple trees in Mill Creek Park by the Judge Morley Performing Arts Pavilion. Dealing with Mother Nature's unpredictability can be tricky business but for this group of volunteers, this labor of love is almost as sweet as the syrup itself.

"We give away as a charity the money that we raise from selling the syrup. So half of it goes to the park and the other half goes to other charities," says Slanina. 

Whether it's rain or snow, the group braves the elements in the winter for as long as long as the trees are producing sap. The season could be roughly 4 to 6 weeks and their work includes gathering the bags of sap off the trees, putting them in buckets, and then producing the syrup on their on-site sugar house. But like anything else, the season start and end are all up to Mother Nature.

We typically see our final freezing temperature from a climatological standpoint in early May so do the trees go by that calendar or do they have their own cycle as far as sap production?

"The end of the season doesn't really align to when the last freeze occurs, it really aligns more to those cycles or freezing and unfreezing in the early spring, that's the main driver of when the season starts and stops. Then when the trees start to bud, the season is officially over," answered Slanina.