Maple Season Update

 We're off to a bit of a slow start so far.  The last 10 days have been fraught with numerous starts and stops of sap flow due to the cold temperatures still plaguing us.....in the forties one day, then barely 32 the next three! (At this rate, we'll be boiling until late-April...)

We woke up to falling snow both Saturday and Sunday, and the temperature never even got above 32 degrees in our sugarbush this weekend!  
 

Thankfully, between us, Barb, and another family who is part of her "COOL" Maple Co-op, we had enough concentrated sap to "sweeten the pans" of the evaporator in preparation for boiling sap in the coming weeks.  

 

(COOL Maple stands for "Cooperative of Otisco Lake Maple" and consists of several small maple producers on or near the lake, brought together by Barb - other folks like us, who do not make quite enough syrup to justify the cost of the high-tech equipment that Barb purchased 7 or 8 years ago.  While she taps 1,200 trees on her property, the rest of us only tap between 90 and 400 on ours.)

We still went over to Barb's place to help with the Maple Weekend Open House, though.  And, we still had some folks stop by for a tour and samples.  The curious, energetic children make it so much fun!

Between visitors, we worked on a few more confections! "Soft maple sugar shapes", to be specific - Mmmmm, they melt in your mouth!

I am hoping that by next weekend, any Open House visitors we have will get the complete sensory experience:


Sap boiling in the wood-fired evaporator and the sweet smell of maple in the air!  







In the meantime, we're choosing and purchasing our bottling materials for this year, but come Wednesday, with temperatures in the forties the rest of the week, we'll be collecting, concentrating and boiling sap.  Stay tuned...