SUMNER – Sap slowly drip, drip, dripped from a metal tap into one of about 400 galvanized buckets hanging from maple trees under the watchful eyes of Mary Ann Haxton early Wednesday afternoon.

Haxton and Marty Elkin own and operate A Wrinkle in Thyme Farm at 106 Black Mountain Road in Sumner. And, like other Maine syrup producers, they are busy getting it ready to receive about 100 people from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Maine Maple Sunday, March 25.

“We only have one quart left from last year, so, we’re kind of anxious for the sap to run,” Elkin said Wednesday afternoon. They made 22 gallons last year with a system they call “backyard sugaring.”

“Everything is done by hand labor. That’s the way we like it. It keeps it feasible for just the two of us,” said Haxton, who handles the boiling and bottling.

So far, despite the sugaring season’s slow start, they’ve boiled 70 gallons of sap, 40 gallons of which is needed just to make a gallon of syrup.

“It’s been late over the last four years. When I was a kid in Danville in the 1940s, we used to tap trees in mid-February,” Elkin said.

Another kid from the Forties, Dick Hall, 66, of East Dixfield and Hall Farms Maple Products, said Wednesday morning that just because the sap’s not running freely, doesn’t mean global warming is behind it.

“It’s just an old-fashioned sap season, because, years ago, the old timers said you didn’t need to be ready until the first day of spring,” Hall said Wednesday morning, standing outside the farm’s silent sugar shack with his sons, Randy and Rodney Hall.

However, the public, many of whom are aloof to finicky weather patterns needed to start sap flows, expects syrup to be ready by Maine Maple Syrup Sunday.

“We’re not concerned. There’s still plenty of time,” Rodney Hall said, standing on a ladder beside their evaporator. “Last year, we had a lot of sap, but we don’t expect to gather any now until Friday.”

Likewise, said Haxton and Elkin.

“Some of the best seasons start late. This year is supposed to be a good year,” Elkin said.

So far, that’s what it is for Jean Bergeron of Cabane A Sucre Bergeron in Hebron and John Bowley of Bowley Brook Maple Syrup in Weld.

“The sap has started up and, so far, it looks promising,” Bergeron said by phone late Wednesday evening. They collected 400 gallons of sap Tuesday from 825 bucket taps. He’s been making syrup as a hobby for 20 years, but, during the past three, he’s gotten into the retail syrup business.

Bowley said Wednesday afternoon by phone that he made 15 gallons of syrup last Monday and Tuesday to complement some made the previous week from 800 taps and a network of piping in one orchard.

“We’re midway through the sap season now, but the starting runs haven’t been that good. Last year I boiled for nine days straight. It was the best year we’ve ever had, but people complained that was a bad year,” he said.

Rodney Hall agreed.

“Last year, while people around us said it was their worst season, we had our second-best syrup season. We had a lot of sap, but this year, we don’t expect to start gathering until Friday,” he said.

They’re on the high end of the production spectrum, with up to 8,300 taps, piping, and, new this year, a $15,000 reverse osmosis machine that will process 600 gallons of sap to make 25 gallons of syrup an hour.

“It’s brand new. No one knows exactly how to use it, but it’s going to be great,” Rodney Hall said.

They’ll start it up Sunday to complement their 8 a.m. pancake breakfast and 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. opening of the sugar shack which houses the machine the evaporator.