March 24, 2021
Tapping into nature
BY SUZANNE WERRE,
Editor
A nice little freeze at night, with a little warm-up to about 40 degrees the next day – and repeat.
That’s what rural Mercer residents Casey and Jessica Anderson would like to see from the next couple weeks of weather. That freeze/thaw cycle is what gets their boxelder trees releasing sap, which they’re tapping into.
For the past four years the Andersons have tapped some of the boxelder maple trees that are just a little jaunt away from their house on their farm west of Mercer. This is the first year they’ve tapped three of them, and they’re hoping for a great harvest of sap, which they’ll cook down into a butterscotchy syrup.
