This is the Good Stuff

A few weeks ago, I posted about our endeavor to tap a Maple tree and thereby make our own syrup. The bottle was in place for just a couple of days as we had a bit of a cold spell and the sap flow had slowed significantly. We were fortunate though to collect nearly a 1/2 gallon of sap. As we wanted to do the 'experiment' with Papa, we stored the sap in the refrigerator and waited until he came to visit.

In the meantime, we also inquired with our COOL home school friends if they knew of any other trees we might be able to access. Fortunately, one of the families' neighbors had 3 trees on his property and so it evolved into a fun afternoon of tree tapping.

Papa came over last Monday in time to see Sweetie in her ballet/tap class. That evening, we got to boiling down the sap we had collected previously. You can see in the photo, that the sap has just come to boil... from that point, it took about an hour and a half to finish the process. Unfortunately, we yielded only about 1 tablespoon of syrup but it was so yummy! While they waited, Papa read a book about Maple Sugaring to Sweetie and thereafter, they spent the rest of the evening drawing.

The COOL families got together again on Friday to boil down the sap, decorate eggs for Easter, and enjoy 5 different pies in honor of pi day (3.14159265 - which represents the ratio of a circle's circumference to it's diameter - but that is not the point of this blog entry). As the weather was more conducive to tapping and we had employed 8 taps, we had much more sap to boil down.... four large pots in fact.

Not so surprisingly, however, we also discovered what would happen if you let it boil too long.

Whoops! Fortunately, we paid a little more attention to the pots that remained and the end result was delicious! Especially as a dip for fresh apple slices.

Many thanks are due...

Thank you Dad for sharing your experience with me. Your love of nature has certainly shaped who I am as a woman and is a major part of why I chose to home school the kids.

Thank you Jolene for obtaining permission to tap the trees, for transporting all the bottles when they were full, for sharing the recipes and resources you found at the library, and for opening your home to all of us for 'playtime'.

Thank you Sarah for taking great photos on the day we tapped the trees (and on all our other fun COOL days, too!) and for quietly motivating my kiddos to learn to speak Chinese!

Thank you Michelle for continually allowing us to use the common house! It is a fabulous resource and I know we all appreciate the openness of you and your neighbors.