Saturday, April 19, 2008

You Know That It's Spring When...

...you find the sap buckets hanging on the trees in the yard.
...and the sap being boiled down on the back deck.
...and you have a couple of bottles of finished Maple Syrup from your very own trees!
This is really a project that was undertaken by Mr. Me and the boys. They tried it last year, but we soon discovered that a propane barbecue does not get hot enough to boil sap. We collected a great deal more sap last year but had to discard it since we couldn't boil it outdoors and I really didn't want my whole house sticky from boiling it inside. (Mr. Me's Grampy did that once, much to the chagrin of his Nana...) Much like milk, sap will sour if not stored properly and processed in a timely fashion. This year I bought him a mega burner... It would normally be used for lobster or corn boils, but also worked very well for Maple Syrup.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is so cool that you make your own maple syrup!!! Looks like a lot of fun!

kasiaiscarly said...

wow. . it must be some HUGE temp swings! looks like you had a lot of sap to make 2 pints of syrup (yes, I do know you need 40x the amount you start with to get syrup!). I adore maple syrup. Jake's dad (in his lumberjacking years) had a partner who still operates a sugarbush and I love stopping in while they're boiling and getting a sip of the final product when it's still hot!!

Nancy @ the Jersey Shore said...

How very fun, your own syrup! Must taste wonderful. I haven't been to visit your blog in a while, I'm sorry for that. hope all is going well for you!

Nancy @ the Jersey Shore said...

Re: my yarn for lace ribbon. No, that originally was for "spring shawl surprise". I haven't even BEGUN mystic light yet. I'm waiting for all the clues to come out, and the errors to be corrected, if any. Plus I need new lace needles. I'm also nervous about the cables. do you have progress?
Hope you're enjoying a sunday breakfast including pancakes and maple syrup!!

scappyhappy said...

Mmmmmmm...pancakes and homemade maple syrup...how yummy! I just crave pancakes but not on the healthy eating plan..but I can look and pretend! LOL

Knitting it Out in an Urban Zoo said...

How fun! What a great way to make memories.

km said...

That is so cool! I knew about the boiling and such, but never gave thought to the spoiling. You'll have to ration that precious syrup.

Dorothy said...

What an awesome thing to do! I'm so jealous that you have homemade maple syrup!

Knittynutter said...

wow, that is so cool making your own maple syrup, yummy....

jak said...

How lovely... brings me back to spring in NB... The sweet warm smell of fresh maple syrup poured on snow and rolled up on a popsicle stick... What a great memory for the boys!

Cindy said...

How incredibly cool! I can't wait to show my kids the pictures so they can see how it is done! I just read in someone else's comment that it takes 40x the sap to get a certain amount of syrup? Wow. That is a LOT!

Great looking family! It seems like they were pretty darned happy with their results!

Anonymous said...

AWESOME! That is just so awesome!!

Robin said...

Oh YUM...homemade maple syrup...mmmm!

Lisa said...

Quite a handsome lot of men you have there, I must say! What a wonderful thing for the three of them to do together!