Here are some photos from the “First Tapping” event of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association on the morning of Saturday March 14, 2015. We arrived just before the ceremony at 10:00 am; it was a long drive from Madison to Cadott. Alice in Dairyland did the first tapping, though in fact most of the trees had already been tapped because the sap had started to run the previous week.

They no longer use buckets for collecting the maple sap; instead there is plastic tubing that is connected to a vacuum system which makes things a lot easier. The event was held in Cedric Boettcher’s sugar bush and afterward there was a pancake brunch at his nearby farm.