Maple syrup season a sour one

The maple syrup season has ended and will go down as one of the worst in recent memory.
That's the word I'm receiving from maple syrup producers around the state who know a lot more about the seasonal crop than I do.
This was the first year that my wife Sherry and I collected sap and made syrup. Our total for the year was about a dozen or so pints, so we've got enough for our own use and to serve to our bed and breakfast guests, but the sap collection was very slow.
Blame that on the weather. The unusually warm March was wonderful to put winter behind us, but the warm nights was not conducive to sap flow.
That's just the opposite of last year, which was one of the best seasons ever for Wisconsin syrup.
Gretchen Grape, the executive director of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association, told me the people who used tubing did better as they suck the sap out of the trees. Those who use collection containers -- like us -- didn't do as well.
However the syrup we did get -- the result of hours of cooking on an old wood-burning stove in a temporary sugar shack that I set up outside -- tasted wonderful. Sherry finished the sap off on the kitchen stove and it had a rich, butterscotch taste.
I can hardly wait to sit down to a plate of sourdough pancakes and enjoy the fruits of our labor.