Olga Peters and Thelma O'Brien

Sweet season

Maple sugaring time begins around Windham County

Buckets and sap lines hanging from sugar maples mark Vermont's sweetest season: sugaring season.

Most Vermont sugarmakers are “fully tapped out” and have tapped all their trees, even in northern Vermont, said seventh-generation maple farmer Arnold Coombs, general manager of Coombs Family Farms and Bascom Farms.

Coombs recently spoke to a sugarmaker near the Canadian border in Franklin County with 55,000 taps. Bascom Family Farms, of which Coombs Family Farms is a subsidiary, has 75,000 taps in Alstead, N.H. The farm has boiled about 1,000 gallons so far.

A few Windham County sugarmakers have started boiling their sap, said Coombs.

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