Maple Sugar Festival

Today we bundled up and braved the cold to go to the Maple Sugar Festival at the Stamford Nature Center.  Due to the harsh winter they weren't even sure if they'd be able to have the annual festival but a few weeks ago we had 3 days or so of above normal temperatures that allowed the nature center workers to tap those maple trees and get some of that maple sap (not sugar) flowing!

There was a lot to do there but the kids only lasted about 2 hours.  We did learn all about making maple syrup though.  Very interesting!

This tree had 2 taps going.  See the buckets on the tree.

We saw lots of action from the otter.  Lower left corner.  The kids loved watching him frolic in the water.

The geese were still there.  You can't tell from the picture but they had noticeable more feathers that were just starting to malt. 

The kids didn't miss stopping for some free popcorn.

Petting bunnies.

"Awww. She's so soft!"

This cow looked miserable.  I'm glad I'm not a cow.

Boiling the maple sap in this huge calderon.

A food tent.  You could get all things maple- Doughnuts, nuts, sugar, syrup, lollipops.

This cute sign was inside their maple syrup making building.

 The piece of equipment below is called "The evaporator".  Once the sap is collected in the buckets from the trees, it is put into this piece of equipment.  At this point it is 98% water and 2% sugar.  They boil it to evaporate out the water.

It takes 40 buckets of maple sap to make 1 bucket of maple syrup!

Holding up her maple heart shaped lollipop!

About to learn an older method of making maple syrup.  

 The Indians had clay pots to cook with and fire.  They couldn't put the clay pots directly into the fire or they would crack.  So they used this method called "Hot rocks."  Using the hollowed out tree stump (to the left) which held the maple sap and a fire, they would continuously heat up large rocks in the fire then transfer them to the sap in the hollow tree.  They would take cold rocks out of the sap and put them back into the fire to heat up, and overtime the sap would get hotter and hotter until finally it would start to bubble and evaporate the water from the sap.

After the demonstration we were given a sample of maple syrup to try.

These buckets were hanging on all the maple trees.  Some trees had 4 taps!

 The below picture makes me smile and has a special story.  It was their first time getting a snow cone.  Albeit was freezing outside and they basically ate it while we walked back to our car.  After eating the snow cone that was above the little snow cone cup, they weren't quite sure how to get to the rest of the snow cone.  Since it was their first time having one, they didn't realize that you had to squeeze the paper cup to make the rest of the snow cone rise.  It just makes me smile because it reminded me of the many things big and small they still have yet to learn.

Right before we left the kids shared a maple snow cone.  

30 minutes later and this was Katie!

45 minutes later and this was Mikey!