Friday afternoon, Feb. 24, Jim Jones was busy boiling sap from the red maple trees on his East Boothbay farm. About 100 gallons bubbled away in a stove set in the middle of the sugar house he built in 2010.

Jones fed spruce and fire splits into the stove's belly to maintain a consistent, intense heat. One hundred gallons of sap will yield about two gallons and a quart of maple syrup.

The patience and time required to make the syrup might be “a hobby that's gotten away from me,” he said. But he loves being outside and he loves the process. He's been making maple syrup for family and friends since his kids were young.

The sap started rising about a week ago and could continue to rise for weeks; he couldn’t be certain, he said. It all depended on the whims of a fickle Mother Nature.

By last Friday, Jones had tapped about 140 trees. The taps dribble sap into containers, for pouring into barrels. Every time sap is poured from one vessel to another, it’s poured through cloth to strain out impurities. 

The sap-filled barrels are taken to the sugar house. There, the sap is poured through a series of filtered containers. The steaming liquid in the stove is eventually released through a spigot into a waiting 12-quart pan, covered with red felt. Jones said that when that was done, he would take the pan inside and continue to boil it on the stove. When the thermometer in the pan reached 217 degrees, no more, no less, the sap would be syrup.

Jones' daughter Eliza calls his product Red Maple Farm Syrup, but Jones hasn't formalized the name. To him, it’s maple syrup, pure and sweet.