The Three Ms

March

My brother -in-law and sister-in-law are celebrating their first anniversary this month.

Mud is covering ground around here. This is the driveway which is our next big project.

Maples So do we have enough work to do or should we learn something new. I found a cool outing for us to attend up at the Waldorf School so away we went... to learn about maple sugaring. Very cool storyteller and Naturalist Ed Bieber of the Nature Place gave a presentation and demonstration on the art of maple sugaring.







Tapping the tree

Tasting the sap which is like a gentle sweet water. As we tasted the sweet sap Ed said, "Happy Spring" which to me felt like accepting communion from mother nature.

Catching the sap and boiling it down

And of couse tasting the syrup on some crushed ice since there was no fresh snow on the ground... oh and pickles. The little sample of pickles makes the maple ice taste even better. Can I say I was in heaven... ice to crunch, sweets and pickles. yummmmm

We were also given some spiles to tap our own tree and away we went. At the back of our property we have 6 or 8 very mature sugar maples in a line along with the other maples in the surrounding property. Anthony got out is antique drill and bit and we went out to tap one of the trees. In our cellar "general store" we found a couple of large aluminum pots which are no good for cooking but catching a days worth of sap would be fine.

The neighbors in the house behind us came out to see what we were doing and the fella across from them. We had a nice little gathering around our chosen tree and explained. They all said they had no idea it was that easy.

Anthony boiling away our first little bit of sap. Admittedly it the humidity warmed up the house and helped out but I could see how you might not want to maple sugar boil in the house for large amounts.

When we finished up with our project we had maple sugar (gold treasure) and sugar water that we will refridgerate and boil down some more with the next batch of sap.