At the Sugar Shack March 29th, 2014

Most springs we go to a maple syrup festival. There are several to choose from, some further afield than others. This year we went to the one at Purple Woods Conservation Area a few miles north of town. There were a couple hundred people there today--lots of families with kids.

Our first stop was the building at the top of the hill for pancakes, maple syrup and coffee. The pancakes were delicious. The maple syrup was especially good this year.

While we were having our pancakes, a young girl at the next table wanted to buy some 25¢ maple candies. Her father told her he'd give her $3.00 if she could tell him how many candies she could get with it.

It took her a few minutes but she came up with the right answer. I think dad would have given it to her even if she got it wrong.

They process the maple sap in the shack. It's at the bottom of the hills so the sap tubing feeds down to it, using a vacuum pump to make the gathering more efficient. Gravity helps, but not much I gather.

They only charged $2.00 for the wagon rides... very reasonable these days I thought. The kids love them. I think a lot of adults get a kick out of them too.

They've had the same beautiful team of horses for quite a few years now.

As you walk down the hill to the sugar shack you see the plastic tubing used to gather the sap.

Smaller lines feed into larger ones as you get closer to the shack. The wood pile here is what they stoke their boiler with to boil down the sap.

Things get a bit complicated sometimes. 

They have a few displays set up near the shack.

The displays are manned by students. This is how our pioneers did it.
 























For trees at the bottom no lines are used, just spigots & pails. Gravity does it here.

You can see the sap in the plastic pails--not much in this one yet.

The displays were mostly to show how things used to be. When the natives harvested the sap they hollowed out small logs, put the sap in them, heated rocks in the fire and put them in the sap. Must have taken a while that way.

These beans & corn were part of the native story.

The boiler is in the sugar shack. A few years ago it was a much simpler one. Business must be good.

When you figure they have to boil 40 litres of sap to get 1 litre of maple syrup, it's understandable that it's pricey. In effect, when you buy your bottle of syrup you're also paying for 39 bottles of sap that were boiled off into the air. Makes it seem like a bargain when you take that into account.

With our crazy winter this year, they said this was the first day the sap was running. The syrup we had on our pancakes was some of last year's harvest.

On the way home we stopped at White Feather Farms to pick up some of their delicious fare. This corn field is south of their parking lot. It caught my eye... a mix of order and chaos. I'm not sure which shot I like best.

Do you find any of them interesting... or are they just boring to you?

Maple syrup festivals are great fun. The pancakes & syrup are always delicious--this year they were especially good. It's always fun seeing the kids have such a good time too.

- fini -