[Popular Mechanics] We had a place in Vermont with maple trees out back. During a particular time of year in Vermont, late winter, there is no good reason to do anything outside. We were all about trying to get our kids outside, so we thought: Let’s drill a hole and get some sap.I bought pails and the proper drill bit, and some cold-resistant tubing. Then I tapped the trees I remembered being maples from their beautiful colors in the fall. Maple trees turn first and give off the most beautiful colors for the autumn. I can remember, as a kid, picking up the seed pods from maples—we called them helicopters—peeling them apart and sticking them on my nose. My kids do that now, too.
We boiled the sap in my garage over an old propane turkey fryer. Once we did that, a bulb went off in my head. We did all that work, I thought, so we might as well tap more trees and get more syrup. So we did. Eventually it turned into a business. We make syrup, but we also accomplished our original goal: My kids get outside in the part of winter when no one really wants to go outside in Vermont. And they do it with us. On top of the syrup, that’s another gift the maple tree gives us.