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It felt like winter. The sky was a mottled grey, the wind sharp, and snow kept spitting down on us. But our minds would have none of that; we were squarely focused, full steam ahead, on spring, because the sap was running and it was Maine Maple Sunday, a sure sign of spring in New England–even more sure than the arrival of red-winged blackbirds and crocuses.

The cozy sugar shack: a roomful of Maine's sweet sap

Celebrated every fourth Sunday in March, Maine Maple Sunday is the day syrup makers throw open their doors, welcoming the public to experience the heady delight of boiling sap down, down, down, into its most perfect state: pure maple syrup. Standing in a cozy sugar shack, humid with billowing fragrant steam and laden with samples of maple 'tea' to sip, it was easy to forget the stormy weather outside.

 Maine Maple Sunday is the day syrup makers throw open their doors, welcoming the public to experience the heady delight of boiling sap down, down, down, into its most perfect state: PURE MAPLE SYRUP!

While sugarhouses vary widely in size (some in northern Maine boast tens of thousands of tapped trees), in our neck of the woods the sugar farms are mostly small, family-owned operations, with maybe a couple hundred taps. This makes for a nice, intimate celebration of the syrup season, and gives you a sense of how much of the sugaring process has gone on unchanged over the past 300 years or so.

We checked out the wood-fired boiling evaporator, learned about other tapable trees (who knew birch syrup has its own following?), and got the kids good and maple sugared up. Did you know it takes a whopping forty gallons of clear sap (aka "sweetwater") to make one gallon of this uniquely North American sweetener? Or that the sugarmaker knows the syrup has met the required-by-law minimum sugar density of 66% when it reaches a temperature of 219°F.

SWEET STEAM: A sugarmaker and his evaporator

Watching the gurgling and bubbling liquid, my sister and I reminisced about our childhood, when we would suck the sap straight from the tubing of a friend's tapped trees. Always on the lookout for a new food to try, this got my husband thinking about ways to use the unconcentrated liquid in his restaurant. A bourbon and maple water, perhaps? My brother-in-law got us up to date on the lucrative state of the organic maple syrup market, where, at a going wholesale rate of $80 a gallon, it's easy to see where the 'liquid gold' moniker came from!

And then, because we just couldn't help ourselves, we came home and made our own Maine maple sundaes, complete with homemade vanilla ice cream, Maine blueberries, and warm local maple syrup. Because it's spring in Maine, and that's what we do. We take the dogs to the beach, grill on the front porch, and eat maple sundaes. Even if it is snowing.

Maine maple Sundae: What Mainers eat in the Spring!

Maine Maple Sundaes

1 pint of the best vanilla ice cream you can find (or just make your own — it'll be cheaper and better!)

1 cup wild Maine blueberry sauce (see recipe below)

¼ cup pure Maine maple syrup, gently warmed

Scoop ice cream into bowls, spoon blueberry sauce over, and drizzle with maple syrup. Serves 6 to 8, if you can exercise restraint in your portions!

Wild Maine Blueberry Sauce

 2 cups fresh, or 10 oz frozen, wild Maine blueberries

6 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar

1½ tablespoons instant tapioca

1 teaspoon lemon juice

 Combine all in a nonreactive saucepan over medium heat. Stirring frequently, bring to a boil and simmer until sauce reduces and thickens, about 10 minutes. Cool and refrigerate.