Very sweet post. We used to make maple syrup at our old place. I do not think we have one maple tree here now where we live. We might plant some sugar maples so we can tap then in our old age with our grandkids though!

When we made syrup we used the exact same type of setup you showed above. Big flat shallow "buffet pans" sunk down into a cinder block setup. We'd spend days on end around the fire, sipping maple sap tea and boiling it down. Then we would finish it off indoor on the wood stove. What fun. There is nothing like homemade maple syrup...