NORTH ABINGTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- The recent thaw has things heating up inside the sugar house at Spring Hills Farm in North Abington Township, Lackawanna County.
The air is warm and smelling sweet as maple sap is boiled down to syrup.
"It's very exciting. Because its full of suspense, I mean there's the suspense of the weather, the equipment, the help you're going to have doing it, what your end product is going to taste like, all of it is up in the air," said Margaret Hull of Spring Hills Farm.
The maple syrup usually starts in the middle of February. It can last four to eight weeks, depending on the weather.
Making one gallon of syrup takes between 30 and 55 gallons of sap or more.
"There's sort of a little bit of disbelief and excitement when you're actually drawing syrup off the evaporator and it's all working," said Dylan Zeitlyn.
Making syrup is not easy, but those at the farm call it a labor of love.
"It's a wonderful product that comes off the land without a lot of interference, this is something Mother Nature just presents us with," said Hull.
This season, there are 1,600 maple tree taps at Spring Hills Farm, which could mean 500 to 700 gallons of sweet syrup.