Ever wanted to make your own maple syrup? With a few tools of the trade and a maple tree in the backyard, you’re just a few easy steps away from coating your waffles and cakes in homemade maple syrup.

Maple syrup is famously made in spring, when below-freezing nights followed by warm days cause the sap stored in a sugar maple’s trunk to flow up and out of the tree and into buckets or plastic tubing ...