Thursday, March 07, 2013

It's Maple Sugar Time!

Tomorrow is the start of March Break here in Ontario.  High school and primary schools are off for all of next week.  Traditionally, this is also the big week for maple sugar bushes to start operation, as they can be guaranteed a big turnout with a lot of people taking the week off with their kids. 
 
 
 
 Some of the sugar bushes are mediocre at best, but the really good sugar bushes have the trees tapped where you can see them, some traditional displays of how sap was boiled down by pioneers and native North Americans, a horse drawn wagon ride, the inevitable pancake house where you can enjoy some freshly cooked pancakes with some locally prepared maple syrup ... and the sugar shack where you can buy your own tin or bottle of syrup and a maple-shaped candy or two.


This is an old picture of my brother and I with our goats 'Jenny' and 'Tinker', a mother & daughter.  Behind us are the woods where my family would collect and boil down our own maple sap into delicious maple syrup for about two weeks.  The entire portion of our sugar maple woods were on a hillside.  We only tapped about 20 trees, but those trees were good producers and there was always enough syrup to get us through most of the year. 

 
We all loved helping with the sap, as it was an opportunity to spend long days in the woods ... the snow crystalline by this time of year, and it was finally just warm enough to hang your winter jacket on a tree branch and sit by the fire in your sweater ... the sun warming the ground and the trees all around you ... the chickadees singing their spring song "spring's here!  spring's here".  We had tamed the chickadees (and an occasional nuthatch and woodpecker) to come to our hands for sunflower seeds.  So they were always flitting around us through the woods begging for some seeds and making us laugh with their funny adorable ways.  We were a family that always had sunflower seeds in our pockets!
 
This is the bottom of our wooded hill where the creek has flooded the flats in springtime.
 
 
Once the sap started running, the trees were tapped with little spiles (spouts) and the buckets hung from the spiles.  Ahhh, the sound of the steady plink, plink, plink as the sap started to fill the bucket!!  SPRING TIME!!  It was our job as kids to regularly walk the path and collect the sap from each tree, and lug the heavy pails back to the fire.  It got tricky along the path because we were walking on a hill, and the snow was packed down on the narrow trail and slippery ... there were more than a few buckets spilled into the ground through the 37 years of living there. 
 
We had a fire burning non-stop during the day in an oil drum set on its side.  My dad fixed an old woodstove door to the opening and cut a rectangle in the top to hold a large steel tub where we poured the sap and it slowly boiled and thickened over the fire (40 gallons of sap = 1 gallon of syrup) . 
 
The best part was testing the sap to see if it was thick enough.  We didn't have the fancy gadgets you can buy for checking sugar content, we just tested it by dipping a spoon in, taking a sip and  agreement all round "yep! it's ready!"  My dad was always just a bit stingy here and wouldn't boil it down to really nice thick syrup, and it was always just a bit runny, but it still tasted great.  Nothing like the taste of maple syrup that's been boiled down over a wood fire.  There was always a little bit of woody bits settled in the bottom of each jar!  Mom would bottle the maple syrup in the kitchen with sterilized jars, and it was with a sense of satisfaction that we'd admire the rows of dark golden syrup lining the counter. 
 
After my two sisters, brother and I left home, we still managed to meet up again during the March break to help with the sap boiling with all our kids in tow.  The cousins all learned to love this special time too. 
 
The country property was sold a few years ago, and I'm not sure if the new owners followed our tradition.  My parents were always saying "Oh, I don't think we'll boil the sap down this year, it's getting too much for us".  But they must have sensed everyone's disappointment, for they continued on a smaller scale until the year before they left (Mom was 82, Dad was 86).  It's one of the many things that will always remain close to my heart about living in the country and spending time with family.  Whenever we have a spring day with crystalized snow and I can smell woodsmoke from a neighbour's woodstove, I just close my eyes and I'm back in a flash to the woods that I love with the sap boiling in the pot!
 
Pancakes and syrup anyone?
 
 
Thanks for stopping by!
 
Wendy
 


28 comments:

  1. What a wonderful story to share! I have always wanted to see how maple syrup is produced... it is a staple in our home. But the northwest is not maple syrup country. I hope you have fun out in the woods with your kids! What great memories!

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed my story :) My brother is visiting next week from Victoria and we may take his kids to a sugar bush.

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  2. Wendy...how beautiful! This story has warmed my heart and touched my soul. I could feel the story and put myself there as I read your post. Something funny happened just now as I was reading this....I think I would like my kids to live where there are less people and more woods. Not sure if it is possible but your story reminded me of the quiet days from my childhood and somehow I want to capture that for my kids. The hustle of the city, the media, and kids access to technology without enough nature is troubling to me. Thank you for sharing this story! I think we can all gain something from how you grew up!

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    1. I'm flattered that this little post sent you such a thoughtful message. My childhood never seemed that great to me. We weren't farmers (Dad was an electrical engineer for Stelco in Hamilton), but lived in a pocket of woods surrounded by farms, and were often teased about our small log barn and funny animals (all my schoolmates had huge milk cow herds, pigs or expensive horses). We had a weiner dog, 2 goats (no one had goats then!) and 1 strawberry roan horse. But we made our own fun with plenty of woods to play in and a creek on each side of our property. We even took our horse & dog for swims in the creek and our goats for walks along the escarpment! We were the weird family ;)

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    2. Aaaah, but such a beautiful, content, weird family :-) Happy weird holds great character. Your childhood sounds magical, and your writing here really does make a person reflect back on their own. I remember LOVING those springtime floods, and the crunchy snow. And now I love watching my children's enjoyment of the very same.

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    3. You're right Wabi-Sabi, I didn't appreciate half of what we did as a family until I grew older. Being a family that was slightly outside of the mainstream made us all individuals and strong in character. I'm happy for you to be able to provide this sort of life for your children ... greatly satisfying :)

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  3. Oh Wendy, I'd love to pop in for pancakes and maple syrup! I often buy it, because the jars and bottles look very pretty in my pantry, and it's always a treat, but I've never really given it a thought as to where it comes from .. now I know, so thank you for that! What a beautiful, heartfelt, nostalgic post ...

    Love Claire xxx

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    1. I'll set a plate for you Claire ;) My son bought me a jar of pure maple syrup last year from Quebec during a school trip ... it was so thick and delicious! That is the maple leaf jar in my photos. My heart about burst when he handed it to me ... he knew (even at 13) that it meant a lot to me.

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  4. ~ Awww what a great story, Wendy...I feel so clueless as I really wouldn't have known how to make maple syrup...I must confess!~ And to see your child hood photographs makes it so much more special..I have a soft spot for your part of the world as my best friend emigrated to Canada many moons ago and sadly we lost touch...YOUR photographs and stories kinda fills in the gaps of her life style in your part of the world ( I know Canada is a massive country) .....Thanks for sharing with us all...A lovely post indeed! ~ Maria x

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    1. I am actually surprised that it's not common knowledge where maple syrup comes from (please no offence intended here). I guess because we're taught about it from a very young age and it's part of our heritage. When I was about 7 our teacher took us to a maple sugar bush, bought maple syrup for us and then made a Maple Syrup Pie for our class to eat!! Take about S.W.E.E.T.!! I actually found the recipe for it in my mom's box from all those years ago :) Must share that ... maybe I'll have a Maple Sugar Festival Week of posts!!

      A friend of mine emigrated to Australia when I was about 10. She found me on facebook a couple of years ago!! I can't believe she remembered me because we weren't close friends, but we rode the school bus together and she even gave me a 'parting' gift of a brooch. I'm not on facebook anymore and have lost touch with her again.

      Glad you enjoyed the post Maria, have a great weekend.

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  5. What a lovely story and good memories you share with us, I loved reading and seing your photos :)
    I have never tasted maple syrup, but I'm sure it's delicious. Here there has been an old tradition to make birch syrup, but there are few left who still do it today.

    I loved your post, Wendy, thanks for sharing.
    Wishing you a wonderful weekend :)

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    1. Thank you Hilde, I'm glad you enjoyed this. Yes, I don't think there is a better taste of sweet things as maple syrup ... seriously. I find it almost too sweet and don't like a lot of it, just a drop on top of my pancakes. Now you have told me something I'd never known about birch syrup. We had a stand of birch trees (you can see them in the photo), which were all quite large when we eventually left that home. I'm now curious to know what that tastes like. Enjoy your weekend too Hilde :)

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  6. Thanks Wendy you brought me back to my childhood in New Hampshire. Living in Phoenix AZ I don't smell wood smoke and my neighbors don't tap their trees :(
    It is s little warmer though. ;)

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    1. I know what it's like to miss something so dear to you. I guess we have to be thankful that we experienced it at all :)

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  7. As always, I love reading your stories Wendy. I remember one spring when I visited Montreal, I had the pleasure of watching & tasting maple syrup poured and rolled on ice to make candy in a stick.

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    1. Thank you Gaia! What a great city in which to experience maple syrup! It's so good, isn't it?

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  8. Such a lovely post along with wonderful pictures. I'm making pancakes for supper tonight for sure now.

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    1. Thanks Jenny! Pancakes for supper sounds perfect for this time of year :)

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  9. That's a great and interesting story. I often wonder what it's like to collect sap from a tree and boil it yourself. I bet it tastes so good! I've also wondered how much comes from one tree. So, it's interesting to read that 20 trees was almost enough for one year of syrup.

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    1. Glad you enjoyed the tale :) When you see how much work is involved, it makes you understand the high cost of pure maple syrup.

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  10. I really enjoyed reading this Wendy! I read about this for the first time in one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. Sounds like a fun tradition - I hope it doesn't die out in the generations to come :-)

    Have a lovely weekend!
    Sarah xx

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    1. Thanks Sarah Jane, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I don't think it'll die out anytime soon ... judging from the comments here, there will always be a demand for it (although most commercial syrup doesn't have any real maple syrup in it at all!). The only real fear would be that we don't save our sugar maple trees. I hope you have a lovely weekend too :)

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  11. Goodness I enjoyed this post, fascinating, and you transported me back to being a small girl listen to my mother read to me from from I imagine was The Little House in the Big Woods!

    I love maple syrup :D

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    1. Thank you Annie, I'm glad you enjoyed this :) It's nice to be transported back to happy memories every so often. Enjoy your weekend!

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  12. Oh wow how amazing and beautiful blog you have. xxx

    www.mindfullygreen.com.au

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    1. Thanks Amber ... I'm glad you enjoyed your visit :)

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  13. I'm at the cottage for March Break - as much as I'd love to tap the tress, it's just me, the 14 year old and the neighbours - no equipment, not enough people. But we do buy local syrup - nothing better than that woodsmoke flavour!

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    1. It's an all-day, every day event to be sure. I don't think I'd want to do it on my own either :) Enjoy your March Break!

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