FENWICK – it's sugar time in Cumberland County.
Cool nights and mild days have sap running in sugar camps across the county and people will soon be taking a walk in the woods to renew their love affair with maple syrup.
"The sap started running a day or two ago and we've been boiling since yesterday," Neil Ripley said from his camp on Fenwick Hill near Highway 2.
Ripley has 16,000 trees tapped in Fenwick and produces about 4,500 litres of syrup every year. He said the season is starting a couple of weeks later than last year when he was making syrup in late February.
"It's hard to compare to last year because it was a bumper year. You can't really make predictions in this business because you never know what kind of weather you're going to get and how the sap it going to flow," Ripley said. "I think it's going to be an average to good year though."
Just up the road, Stan Thompson is also gearing up for the season. He started making syrup on Tuesday and already has some maple candy ready. He produces about 1,136 litres a year from 3,300 trees.
While heavy snow has impacted operations elsewhere in northern Nova Scotia, both Ripley and Thompson said their trees and lines were not affected by the snow.
"We had some damage last fall when some trees fell on the lines, but we were quick to get them fixed. The snow didn't really do any damage," said Thompson.
Both Thompson and Ripley expect to begin receiving visitors in the next day or two and with mild weather predicted for the weekend both are expecting a lot of sap to flow.
dcole@amherstdaily.com
