Took a Break from the Car this Weekend

[Shakey]

The sap is running pretty good this year in Southern Ontario so it was a good opportunity to make some maple syrup.  My In-Laws have a farm outside of Toronto on the shore of Lake Erie so we let the car sit for the weekend and decided to colllect some sap, boil it and make some maple syrup.

130 trees were tapped, not many considering in the past Wayne has tapped 300, collected 80 gallons of sap and got set to boil.  80 gallons of sap produces 2 gallons of syrup and despite all of the hard work, the payoff is pretty sweet - pun intended!  There is a "sugar shack" built in the forest back in 1949, about 2 kms from the homestead.

We collected sap on Saturday and stored it in the holding tank (an old milk tank) beside the shack and came back early Sunday AM to start the boiling process.

It takes a long time for it to boil so while we are boiling we make breakfast, bacon, eggs and some crude looking pancakes.  That is my Nephew who was cooking until he burned his finger.

Attached are some pics for you folks.

I'll get back to the car next weekend.

[Shakey]

 

[Shakey]

 

[Orange_Crush]

VERY COOL!

Being the city boy I am, I knew nothing about the process of making maple syrup.  When we lived in Albany, NY as a kid, we'd often drive out to bennington, Vermont in the winter and I'd sometimes see the taps on the trees.  What does the raw sap taste like?  Is it sweet? 

In any case, it looks like some good "family time" was spent and hey...you had fresh maple syrup for your weird-looking pancakes!

Incidentally...the only think I do know about maple syryp is that Cracker Barrel is the single largest consumer of maple syrup in the world (at least that's what it says on the menu).

[Shakey]

VERY COOL!

Being the city boy I am, I knew nothing about the process of making maple syrup.  When we lived in Albany, NY as a kid, we'd often drive out to bennington, Vermont in the winter and I'd sometimes see the taps on the trees.  What does the raw sap taste like?  Is it sweet? 

In any case, it looks like some good "family time" was spent and hey...you had fresh maple syrup for your weird-looking pancakes!

Incidentally...the only think I do know about maple syryp is that Cracker Barrel is the single largest consumer of maple syrup in the world (at least that's what it says on the menu).

I am also a city boy that is slowly being transfered into a country boy because I married a country girl.  I am still learning the processes as well.  The raw sap is somewhat sweet, just like drinking water with a few tablespoons of sugar.  I only drank a bit to taste.  I don't think you'd want to drink a glass full.

You are right OC, great family time as my Nephew and Daughter were with us.  The pancakes were pretty crude looking but tasted great.

There sure is alot of hard work going into making maple syrup.  The hardest part is collecting the sap, walking through the forest, emptying the buckets into a 5 gallon pail and then into the tank on the trailer.  The forest floor is very soft & muddy and there are logs and sticks and mud puddles galore.  Hard on the back after a couple of hours of doing that.

[Blown70]

Hmmm, I think you get some copper tube and you could make some SHINE....

[4402tuff4u]

Sounds like an excellent family outing. The charger will still be there, the sap won't! When I took my kids skiing in the Catskills Mountains here in upstate NY, a few weeks ago, I saw what it looked like rope connecting a whole bunch of maple trees, the rope turned out to be small pipes/tubing that collect the sap from trees to a central place. Now I know why they get the prices they charge for a gallon of maple syrup! Well deserved 

[Telvis]

That's my kind of weekend. It looks like a lot of fun. My son would love that.

[Arthu®]

That really looks like fun. I wouldn't mind trying that sometime. City kid myself so don't know much about that kind of stuff.

Arthur

[Shakey]

That really looks like fun. I wouldn't mind trying that sometime. City kid myself so don't know much about that kind of stuff.

Arthur

It was a lot of fun but tiring, keeping on top of things as well as looking out for the kids.  My Daughter, who just turned 2, kept wandering away from the shack.  She'd never get too far as we always knew when it got quiet. 

As you can see by the attached photos she started out relatively clean in an old snowsuit, then as she got tired, had some difficulty walking through the muddy forest.  She always found the mud puddles, sometimes on purpose as there is not a lot of entertainment out there for her.  Normally she is the type that gets annoyed with any dirt on her hands, as you can see by the end of the day she had given in.

[Silver R/T]

looks like fun