 It may not feel like it with the recent snowstorm, but the end of winter is on its way eventually. That means maple syrup farms around the country are gearing up for production. On this week's Northwood's adventure, Anthony Scott shows us that making your own maple syrup can have some sweet benefits. We're about the western side of the world. There are no maple trees much west of here. Ah, maple syrup. There may be no better way to start your day than with some rich golden maple syrup drizzling onto your pancakes. But did you know that you can easily make your own maple syrup right here in Minnesota? You can make syrup out of one or two taps and boil it on your stove, or you can make a hundred gallons, whatever you've got time for. All you need is maple trees, a drill, some taps, a hammer, a collection bucket or bag, something to boil the sap in, and the perfect weather. Perfect conditions for sap. Condition is 40 degrees and warmer during the day, and it has to freeze at night. If it freezes at night, it makes sap in the trees flow. Once you have your taps in the trees, you collect the sap, boil out most of the water, and you're left with maple syrup. And in Minnesota, the sap is rich with sugar, making it a little easier to turn sap into syrup. Here in Minnesota, we're lucky. We get a very rich concentration of sugar in our sap. We get 3% is not uncommon. If you go to Wisconsin or New York or farther east, you'll be lucky to get 2%. Here are two bottles of maple syrup that came from the same type of tree, but the color is vastly different because of the time of season the sap was drawn, and that results in a completely different taste. The first sap that you get out of a tree will be very light flavored, very light maple flavor and almost a vanilla taste. The sap that's produced at the end of the season will be darker. The syrup will have a rich, heavy maple flavor to it, and you won't taste any of those vanilla stuff in it. Producing your own maple syrup can be a great family event as well. My son and I have talked about it a few times, but tend to get overwhelmed when you're trying to look at just starting something you've never seen done before. So it was really good to be able to actually drill into the stump that they had and see exactly how far in to go and what to do. The maple syrup season doesn't last long, but it leaves you with a sweet reward at the end. Reporting from Brainerd for this week's Northwoods Adventure, Anthony Scott, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.