ROCKPORT — This week last year, persistent cold had all but frozen Tom Cox out of his sugarhouse. And although the sap had run for a day-and-a-half this week and allowed him to collect a few hundred gallons, Wednesday's winds and cold were making it hard to keep his handcrafted extractor up to temperature.

"On a normal day, it would be pushing 115 degrees in this sugarshack," said Cox, latching the door and adding another load of wood into the firebox beneath the extractor. "The steam would be so thick we couldn’t see each other, and we would be sitting outside, not hanging around inside like we are today."

Cox and a friend, Skip Pound, planned to spend the day boiling down sap in hopes of turning it into liquid gold – maple syrup. Maine maple syrup is made in sugarhouses big and small, most often using wood to boil the hard rock and sugar maple sap to 220 degrees Fahrenheit, which is when enough water has been boiled off/removed and it becomes maple syrup. March 18 was the official first boiling day of the 2015 season for Cox and Pound, a date they have memorialized each year, since 2005, with a Sharpie permanent marker on the side of the stainless steel extractor.

They also keep notes on the wall of the sugarshack, noting what week each year they tap the 400 trees they have in three locations, how well they sap flowed, when they began boiling and what the total syrup yield was. A third friend, Jim Annis, also helps with tapping, collecting sap and delivering it to Cox’ property, where the three men spend the month of March holed up inside the shack talking, telling stories, filling the firebox and watching over the process.

According to the notes for 2010, it was a crummy year as far as their yield. They were able to tap early, Feb. 23, after four days of 40-plus weather. They started boiling March 1, but the weather stayed warm all spring and they only came out with 30 gallons of syrup before putting out the fire March 24.

In 2011, they started tapping Feb. 24, a day later than in 2010. They started boiling March 8 and continued through April 6. The weather cooperated all month, allowing them to keep the fire burning and the sap boiling, and they ended the season with 64.75 gallons.

In 2012, they ended up with 48 gallons. And while the goal is to make as much sticky, sweet maple syrup as they can, it's all for fun and camaraderie. It's something to do to keep retired hands and minds busy and active. It's social and it's continuing traditions.

"We give it all away," said Cox.

This weekend ushers in the annual Maine Maple Sunday, when sugarhouses around the state open their doors to the public and share the joys of watching barely-sweet sap boil down into the amber stuff we cook with and pour over pancakes, waffles, French toast and ice cream.

This winter has not been kind to Maine's maple syrup producers, but somehow, they always manage to pull off Maine Maple Syrup Sunday and show the public a good time. There's always free samples and demonstrations, and some farms offer sugar maple tours and native trail hikes, live music, homemade goodies and plenty of coffee and hot chocolate.

And in case you want to bring home a bottle or two of the real deal, they'll likely have plenty of that on hand too.

The sugarhouses in Knox, Lincoln and Waldo counties listed below are participating in the Maine Maple Producers Association's Maine Maple Sunday. For a statewide list and map of participating sugarhouses, click here or click on the .pdf link above.

Knox County

Blueberry Fields Bed and Breakfast
673 Razorville Road, Washington
As we kick off our first year as maple syrup producers, we would love to have you be part of our history. Stop by for a self-guided tour of our sugarbush and experience syrup making in the sugarhouse. Free samples of our syrup on ice cream and home-made maple syrup goodies for purchase. Rest rooms available; school tours welcome.
Hours: March 21-22, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
Phone 446-2408
Email blueberryfieldsbandb@gmail.com
Web: www.blueberryfieldsbandb.com/

Freyenhagen's Family Farm
51 Wotton's Mill Road, Union
Description of Activities: Visit us on Maple Sunday for tours and sampling.
Phone: 785-4559
Email: jfreyenhagen@roadrunner.com

Sparky's Woody Mountain Maple
130 High Street, Hope
Description of Activities: Sugaring demonstration with free samples of maple syrup on waffles and ice cream. Farm tours, sugarhouse tours and demonstrations.
Hours: March 21-22
Phone: 831-5085
Email: sparky@tidewater.net
Web: www.sparkyshoneyandmaple.com

Riley Sandbox Sugar
73 Warrenton Street, Glen Cove (Rockport)
Music, pancakes, and sledding. Campfire, campus tours and accessible to sugaring trail. Wear mud boots and come enjoy the fields, pond, and trail. Restrooms and handicapped accessible.
Hours: March 22, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Phone: 930-9995
Email: info@rileyschool.org
Web: www.rileyschool.org/

Lincoln County

Tim's Sugar Shack
23 Grand Army Road, Whitefield
Description of Activities: Come and watch a back yard sugar house. Walk thru the sugar bush and watch us make syrup on a wood evaporator. Enjoy a dish of ice cream with maple syrup on it and then check out our maple products. Sugarbush tours, handicapped accessible, school tours.
Hours: March 21-22, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
Phone: 549-5016
Email: marthatim@roadrunner.com
Web: www.grandarmyweather.com

Goranson Farm
250 River Road, Dresden
In depth description of syrup making production, inside the sugarhouse and through video of sap collection. Enjoy a free maple sundaes inside our adjacent greenhouse where there will be live music and fresh donuts and baked goods for sale. Our maple syrup, candy, maple nuts, and maple tea will also be for sale. Trails to our sugarbush grove are open and there will be tractors and farm animals about. Learn about our CSA and purchase some of our certified organic vegetables. Farm tours, restrooms, school tours. Hours: March 22, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Phone 737-8834
Email organic@goransonfarm.me
Web: www.goransonfarm.me/

Waldo County

Beaver Hill Plantation
130 Sibley Road, Freedom
Wagon rides, live boiling and syrup making demonstration on our wood fired evaporator, ice cream with Maple syrup, homemade goodies, coffee and hot chocolate, maple syrup for sale. Sugarbush tours, restrooms, school tours, additional parking available.
Hours: March 21-22, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Phone: 382-6129 or 487-1445
Email: beaverhillplantation@gmail.com
Web: beaverhillplantation.com

Bradstreet Maple Farm
69 Peters Road, Searsmont
Free samples, demonstrations, maple syrup and related products for sale, look for signs. Self guided sugarbush tours and handicapped accessible.
Hours: March 22
Phone: 441-8801
Email: mark@bradstreet.com
Web: www.getrealmaine.

Ducktrap Valley Maple Farm
153 Dickey Mill Road, Belmont
Sugaring the flat land of a river valley with a sugarbush or red maples. New, heated farm-stand. Skiing and snowshoeing available on historic Olde Dickey Road and in the Ducktrap River Preserve. Home-baked/cooked, maple sweetened products for our own recipes include pies, maple apple butter, wild Maine blueberry maple syrup, and baked beans. Sugarbush tours, restrooms, handicapped accessible.
Hours: March 21-22, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Phone: 342-3179
Email: ducktrapvalley@local.net

Ireland hill Farm
282 Nickerson Road, Swanville
Farm tours, sugarbush tours.
Hours: March 21-22, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m.
Phone 322-7625
Email jireland247@hotmail.com

Kinney's Sugarhouse
200 Abbott Road, Knox
Walking tours of our sugarbush, maple syrup production inside the sugarhouse. Maple cotton candy tent. Local vendors including a food truck. Farm tours, sugarbush tours, restrooms, handicapped accessible, bus tours, school tours.
Hours: March 21-22, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Phone: 568-7576
Email: info@mapleconfections.com
Web: www.mapleconfections.com

Simmons and Daughters Maple Syrup
261 Weymouth Road, Morrill
Description of Activities: Join us in our timber frame sugarhouse overlooking Camden Hills with a
wood fired evaporator, serving free ice cream with maple syrup. Will have maple syrup, candy, whoopie pies, cotton candy and hotdogs cooked in sap for sale. There will be farm tractors for kids to check out and door prizes and raffle.
Hours: March 22, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., open every day that we are boiling or by appointment
Phone: 342-2444
Email: johndeer2@fairpoint.net