By David Fleet
dfleet@mihomepaper.com
In 1965 “The Sound of Music’ was released, Al Kaline hit .281 for the Detroit Tigers and the sweet aroma of simmering maple sap coupled with a wood fire spread across the woodlands of southern Brandon Township.
In February Dale Bond’s Sugarbush, a late winter ritual on that site for six decades, fired up for another season of maple syrup production.
“It is not the calendar, but the weather that determines when the sap will run and when cooking can proceed in a rustic cook site in the sugarbush,” said Bill Haney, township resident and long-time sap harvester. “The run is triggered when temperatures are below freezing at night and reach about 40 degrees in daytime. This year that happened late in February, which is typical.”
But other freak weather conditions greatly shortened this year’s sap cooking time, added Haney.
After a prolonged cold stretch in February with a deep blanket of snow, warmer days at the end of the month got the sap running.  Cook sites in the area’s sugarbush stands were busy off and on for two weeks before temperatures soared to 75 degrees on March 15.
“That meant that sap collected in large bins would spoil and so collecting and cooking stopped at many cook sites,” he said.
That was the case at the Dale Bond sugarbush site on Allen Road where Bond began tapping and cooking by himself in 1965 and has taught the art to others since then.
While Bond’s Sugar Bush is just for fun, syrup production statewide remains a viable business. Michigan maple syrup farmers hoped for some sweet news for the 2025 season after production dipped in recent years. In 2024 Michigan ranked fifth in syrup producers in the country with 200,000 gallons, up from 170,000 gallons a few years before according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Vermont out dripped the nation with 2,000,000 gallons, followed by New York 750,000 gallons and Maine third with 470,000 gallons.