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“This kettle here is our starting kettle. It is our heater and our boiler," said Marie Schultz. "You can see the sap is very clear. It looks like water, but tastes like sweet water."

Rain or shine, the Genesee Country Village and Museum is open for business. Period reenactors are making maple sugar at the museum’s sugaring camp from sap coming directly from the museum’s maple trees.

"What we need are the cold and freezing nights, and we need the warm days,” said Shultz. “The warm days will thin it out a little bit and allow it to run."

The trees are tapped, providing the museum with sap for maple syrup and sugar. Some say the lack of snow on the ground is a sign of an unusual and challenging season.

"This is very abnormal,” said Jeff Nicoll, Owner of the J&J Sugar Shack of Bergen. “But we take what we are given and hopefully we'll carry on for the next season."

Nicoll’s hobby is making maple syrup. He says this year has been an even bigger fight against Mother Nature.

"Sap's been good quality wise. Sugar content has been ok,” said Nicoll. "For some people this is their livelihood. It could hurt all the way around throughout New York, Vermont. It's just going to hurt the whole industry throughout the Eastern United States."

Nicoll says he usually makes about 50 gallons of maple syrup a year, but he’s only been able to make 18 gallons so far this year.

“Hopefully it will freeze Monday or Tuesday,” he said. “If not we could be done sugaring very soon."

Even though production may be down, the museum is still upbeat looking forward to a busy next few weeks.

"We have been collecting sap over the last couple of weeks, and we do have enough that we will be sugaring for the next three weeks,” said Charles LeCount, Senior Director of Programs and Collections.

Bob King, Director of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Monroe Community College, says while this first run of sap production may not be great due to weather, with a return to more seasonal temperatures we can expect volumes to improve dramatically.

Genesee Country Village and Museum