And of course, now it's gone again. "Wouldn't it be great if we got sugaring weather again, but the season's already done," Hope said. Not so sweet sap Adding to sugar maker's woes, sugar content in the sap that did flow was lower than usual this year. "Mother Nature sometimes works and sometimes doesn't," Hope said. "What I'm hearing is the average sugar content in sap is 2%. People were running much lower than that for a portion of the time." That meant it took more than the usual 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. "You're still doing all the work you're just not getting the barrels you normally get," Hope said. "People also said they made some golden and more dark syrup than usual this year. I'm a huge fan of dark so that's OK with me, but it's not following the normal pattern."