Maple Weekend

Aaaaaand, we're back!  Sorry readers (all five of you), the monotony of day-to-day life really killed my blogging mojo.  But we finally did something blog-worthy last weekend so here we are!

On Saturday, we once again trekked to Neise's Maple Farm to take part in the festivities known as Maple Weekend.  All we had to do was tell Anna we were going for pancakes and she was there!

Clara loved sitting on Daddy's lap, being fed bites of delicious french toast and bacon.

After we ate, we walked around the farm a bit.

We were sad to see that the "sugar shack" wasn't running on that day.  Our extremely mild winter reeked havoc on the maple industry.  Apparently maples like it cold and since it didn't really get cold this year, the sugaring season was very short.  The maple producer told us this has been the lowest production year in New York since the 1800s!

Mr. Neise did, however, give us a fun little tour.  He explained the tools of the trade and the evolution of maple syrup production.

Mr. Neise - 8th Generation Maple Producer!

 This set-up shows how early American settlers would have boiled sap for syrup.

Tapping a tree!  Nowadays, they use electric drills but this is how Mr. Neise grew up doing it.

If you look closely, you can see the sap dripping down from the freshly drilled hole.

A classic sap bucket.  These are rarely used anymore and have given way to the tubing you see in the pictures above.  They even have vacuums they can turn on to suck the sap out quicker!

It was a very interesting process to watch.  And we even got to stick our finger under the drip to see what straight maple sap tastes like!

Before leaving, we stopped at the gift shop for a small jug of pure maple syrup, a bottle of raw honey and a jar of natural maple peanut butter.

It was a fun, and delicious, family activity!