 You need a financial advisor with the freedom to focus on your specific needs. Whatever your goals, Reed Potter can create a game plan tailored to you. Call Reed at 432-0777 at Pikeville, Kentucky to learn more. In January, South Dawn Farms began the production of maple syrup in preparation for Kentucky Maple Day. So the Kentucky Maple Syrup Days are a really cool event. We're really hoping it drives agritourism throughout the state on farms. South Dawn Farms began the process of tapping their trees eight years ago as a science experiment. They later took a class at the Letcher County Extension Office on how to set up tubing to produce maple syrup commercially. Yeah, so we're making Kentucky Maple Syrup right here in Letcher County. And it's something that we really enjoy doing. We have a passion for it. We believe there's just a lot of opportunities for the industry in eastern Kentucky, especially where we don't have traditional agriculture here, soybean fields, crop farming. We have lots and lots of land, but most of it's vertical. And on that land, there's a lot of maple trees. For every 66 gallons of sap collected from the trees, it will make about one gallon of maple syrup. However, production is dependent on the weather. We typically tap in January and then we wait for freeze thaw cycles. So maple sap will flow out of a tree when you have nights that are below freezing and days that are above freezing. A night in the 20s and a day at 45 can produce many, many gallons of maple syrup. Maple syrup has deep roots in Appalachian history, dating as far back as colonial times, with many locals making it as a kid with their families. When we started selling maple syrup at the local market, it was really interesting. We had a lot of older people, I mean, in their 80s and above, would say, did you make that here in Letcher County? I remember when helping my mom and dad. We used to do this. In fact, not only us, but everybody up and down the creek was doing it. Because it was during the war, sugar was rationed. It was hard to get. It was expensive, so resourceful people made their own. But we think there's so much potential for maple syrup production. It's not going to save Appalachian. It's not going to be the thing that comes in and what's after coal or what's next type of thing. But I always take the shotgun approach. We don't need a silver bullet solution in our economy post coal. What we need is a shotgun effect where there's lots of different silver BBs being shot. And I just happen to believe that maple syrup is one of the things that we can be doing. Kentucky Maple Day is Saturday, February 5th, and has 13 participating locations across the state. Southbound farms will be open from 9 to 4. For more information on Kentucky Maple Day, visit ky-mapleserip.ca.uky.edu. For Mountaintop News, I'm Brianna Robinson.