Maple Weekend 2010

One of the things I was really looking forward to when we moved here was the Maple harvest. Every year, for a couple of weekends in March, maple syrup farmers open their properties to the general public to show how maple sugar is made. A lot of farms also have goodies to sample and fun activities like hayrides. Some farms show the old-fashioned way to make maple syrup and some show the new way. We decided to save visiting a farm for when Papa Bear is home, so instead we traveled to Crogan, NY where the American Maple Museum is.

After having unusually warm weather, there was a cold spell, so our morning was a little chilly. We had to wait outside for a few minutes for the pancake breakfast. Gummy Bear was in a bad mood most of the day, but I had to leave him in his stroller since I can't hold him more than a couple of minutes now that I'm extremely pregnant!

Finally, we made it inside and were seated in the museum dining room. Volunteers served us yummy pancakes, applesauce, locally-made sausage, and orange juice. And of course, there was light maple syrup to drench our pancakes with!

The only thing that seemed to make Gummy Bear happy was when he was stuffing his mouth. Yum, yum! Cinnamon ate TWO pancakes and her sausage, and spilled her water all over the table, of course.

Panda ate her obligatory pancake and then started scooping up the syrup and eating it by the spoonful. Maple Syrup is her favorite. Surprisingly, our pickiest eater also ate the sausage, although she tried to fool me into thinking she hated it. Hardry, har, har.

Somewhere I heard that Joseph Smith's family harvested maple sap on their farms in Sharon, Vermont and Palmyra, NY. I found a little more information from a podcast on ldsworldtours.com. The Sacred Grove was actually a maple grove behind the Smith Farm. It had 750 to 1000 maple trees that the Smiths left alone when clearing the farm. The Smiths used the sap they got from the trees to make blocks of maple sugar which were used just like money. They harvested a thousand pounds of maple sugar a year. We also know that when Joseph went to pray in the Grove, it was during the maple harvest season in the early spring, making the probable date of the First Vision March 26, 1820.

Maple Syrup is made by tapping maple trees for their sap. The sap fills a bucket, and then the bucket is taken to a central holding barrel, drawn by horses. It is then taken to the processing shack where a pump takes the sap out of the barrel and puts it in a storage vat.

The sap is then directed into an evaporator. Wood was burned under the evaporator to provide the heat to evaporate the water off and leave just the syrup from the sap. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.

Cinnamon and Panda found a boyfriend!

Of course, in Joseph Smith's day, they didn't have these handy-dandy evaporators. Instead, they had a big pot that sat on a fire. Nowadays, they have fancy tubing that takes the sap to the storage vat, and the evaporators run by modern forms of energy.

In order for the sap to run, the temperature must remain below 40 degrees. If it goes above 40 for more than 24 hours, the sap stops running. That's why New England and northern New York are perfect for Maple Syrup Harvesting. The better quality maple syrup is harvested earlier in the season and is light and sweet. The syrup harvested later is darker and more bitter.

Afterwards, we visited the Crogan Candy Shop, a cute little store on Main Street. I picked out 8 truffles to treat myself to, and some fudge. The girls got chocolate horsies and crystal lollipops.

We love maple syrup!!!