This year we had the opportunity to spend a chunk of Good Friday helping my dad at the sugar shack. Both girls enthusiastically helped but I think that Katrine’s level of excitement was a bit higher given that she actually understood what they were doing. They are already on me to whip up a batch of GF pancakes so that they can use the maple sirop “that they made”. Let me take you through our afternoon.
1. We arrive at the bush and are greated by rows of tapped trees.
2. Stop in at the sugar shack to get the fire started, take a nice close look at the equipment without the usual layer of steam and collect our buckets.
3. Okay, the troops are ready to go. Off into the bush to check which buckets are full, collect the sap into our pails and the haul it back to the shack. In total we collected about 13 gallons (45 litres) of sap.
Katrine tried to do it all by herself but then the red pail got to heavy and then mom had to lug it about while she continued to fill it up.
Katrine took her big sister duties quite seriously. At every stop she would check the various buckets and leave the one with the smallest amount of sap for Elspeth. As you can see, Elspeth still needed help but she gave it her all.
4. Then we went to look at the swans, geese and ducks while it was being boiled (not the actual sap we collected but shh don’t tell my girls). By the time we came back there was some sap ready to be poured off. This is the first time that the girls have ever got to see this part of the process. Usually when they visit, Grandpa is boiling water for tour groups so that they can see the process regardless of how the sap has been running. Anyways, they got to see how it is poured through a strainer into a large container and then bottled.
That is my dad filling the sirop bottle.
5. Topped the whole experience off with some hot chocolate and a homemade turkey dinner.