By Gillian Graham

Staff Writer

Maple syrup producers across the state will welcome visitors into their sugarhouses this weekend for the annual Maine Maple Sunday.

Keith Harris of Harris Farm in Dayton expects nearly 2,500 visitors at the farm this weekend for pancake breakfasts, wagon rides and tours of the sugarhouse and maple orchard. Harris Farm is open both Saturday and Sunday.

Down the road, Clark Cole Family Pure Maple Syrup and Andy’s Agway will host a joint open house and pancake breakfast Saturday morning.

Harris and Cole both look forward to carrying on family traditions of tapping maple trees and boiling sap each year.

“I grew up making maple syrup,” Harris said. “I’ve been chasing my grandfather around making syrup since I was old enough to be in the woods.”

Harris began making syrup on his own in 1985 and produces between 120 and 150 gallons in an average year. For Cole, making syrup is a continuation of a family spring tradition he learned from his grandfather in the 1940s. He produces close to 100 gallons in an average year.

This year, however, is anything but average.

Harris said unusually warm temperatures reduced sap flow and many people are expecting to produce less syrup than usual. Harris Farm likely will produce about 100 gallons from 525 tapped trees; Cole said he has finished his season with about 80 gallons.

Ideal temperatures during the five-week season are 20 degrees at night and 40 degrees during the day. The typical season runs all of March and either the last week of February or the first week of April. This year, Cole began tapping Feb. 20 and had more maple syrup by March 10 than ever before.

“I’m not disappointed. I’ve had worse years than this,” he said.

Harris said his family is busy not only boiling sap in the evaporator to make syrup, but also perfecting a new recipe for maple kettle corn.

“It’s the time of year people are ready to be outside,” he said. “Hopefully the weather is perfect.”

Even if the weather isn’t perfect, Cole and his family will have plenty of hot coffee on hand and a warm, steamy sugarhouse to walk through. He said he is looking forward to answering visitors’ questions about how maple sugar is made.

“It’s interesting to me to meet the number of people who haven’t been in a sugarhouse,” he said. “There are no stupid questions in a sugarhouse.”

Staff Writer Gillian Graham can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 213.