Maple Sugaring

Today we went to a Maple Sugaring Demonstration at the Rocky Ridge Reservation (a Cleveland Metropark) with Rachel and Brandon's family, and our friends Danny and Crystal, and their son Jace. The demonstration included a guided tour through the woods to learn how maple sugar has been and is currently collected, and a sample of the maple syrup. It was a great excuse to be outdoors, enjoying the sunshine and the crisp winter air!

We were told that our current NE Ohio conditions--of cold nights and warmer days (45 degrees)--is actually ideal for maple sugar collecting (because the pressure that the temperature difference creates within the trees pushes the sugar out).

(Sinzibukwud is the Native American name for the maple tree.)

Here we are taking our guided tour through the woods:

And here, our tour guide (a park ranger) is telling us about how they tap the trees to retrieve the sugar:

She told us that they use these buckets to collect the maple sugar (which they have to switch out 2-3 times a day during prime sugaring season in February and March). Although that seems like a lot, maple sugar actually consists of over 90% water, so 40 of these buckets of maple sugar boils down to only 1 bucket's worth of maple syrup! And since the park doesn't make enough syrup to sell, they give it all out as samples to people like us who come for the demonstrations! Isn't that neat?

Here's an example of how the Native American's collected the maple sugar...

...which, because it is mostly water, is clear...

...and how they would have boiled it down to make maple syrup.

Today, the rangers use this contraption to boil the maple sugar and make syrup (they dump the sugar into the metal bin at the top left, it then drains down the tube and into the steaming boiler in the middle, and out the faucet through a paper strainer into the metal bin in the bottom left as the finished product).

At the end of the tour, some volunteers handed out mini pancakes to sample the maple syrup on. Yum!

It was so interesting to learn how this process worked, and such a treat to be doing something outdoors as a family.
Maybe we'll have to start our own maple sugaring tradition!

And just for fun, here's a recent picture of Grace. She loves to play with the curtains and point at all the things outside!