Maple Sugaring

This has been on my to-do list ever since we moved to Michigan, but there is pretty much a two-week window every year that it happens.  I caught it this year!  We took the kids on a tour at the local nature center to learn all about collecting maple tree sap and turning it into syrup.  

Here Luke is practicing drilling a hole into a log.

 Here are a few of the collecting buckets attached to trees.  Conditions have to be just right to get good sap from the trees, so that is why you can really only do it for a couple of weeks at the beginning of spring.  

 Here our guide was showing us a more advanced collecting technique than the buckets, where small tubes are attached to a bunch of trees, emptying into bigger tubes that collect into big bins (in this case a garbage-type container).

 We all were able to sample the sap straight from the trees.  Here is a picture of Audrey sticking her finger in the big bucket for a taste.  It looks and tastes a lot like plain ol' water.  I think they said they were lucky to get 2% sugar out of their trees' sap.  No wonder maple syrup is so expensive!  It takes about 6 gallons of this watery sap to make one little jar of syrup.  It was pretty cold that day, so you can see ice forming on the sap.

 Then we all headed to the maple sugar shed to see the sap cooked in to syrup.  You can see all the steam coming out of the top of the building.

 It seems pretty tricky to cook the sap just right, and they kept checking it every 30 seconds or so.  

 In the end, we tasted real Michigan maple syrup on waffles and tried maple sugar candy (cooked down even more until it's a solid).  Both were delicious!  Of course, we had to take a few photo opportunities inside the nature center.  Overall, it was a fascinating tour, and I loved it.  I think everyone else liked it too.  :)