Is it real maple syrup or not? Children taste a sample from a cup offered by Crystal Wold, park naturalist at Eastman Nature Center in Elm Creek Regional Park Reserve.

Maria Felt, left, and Annika Bixby, right, taste the sap from a bucket in the woods at Baylor Regional Park. The sap has a trace of sweetness.

With help from her mother, Brenna Klompenhower empties the metal bucket used to catch the sap dripping from a maple tree into a larger bucket that will be carried to the fire where the sap is boiled down to make syrup.

Maple sap is boiled down to make syrup in a large kettle over an open fire at Eastman Nature Center. It takes 40 gallons of maple sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.

Lenny Schmitz, Parks Coordinator at Baylor Regional Park, shows how he uses a hydrometer near the conclusion of the evaporation process to determine the sugar content of the syrup. If the content is high enough, the syrup is ready for bottling.