Most years the sap-boiling is a three-day process, with the big “Family Day” on Saturday. (One year we had 30. The year it rained we had 8, and we mostly stayed under the canopies.) Folks are encouraged to arrive anytime after 10AM. We have maps and directions here.
It’s colder “on the land” than in the city, but we’ll have a warming area available, and we’ll have kid-friendly sanitary facilities, and toilet paper. For Saturday, generally, this is what you’ll need:
1. Bring a bag lunch. We will have hot drinks for all ages.
2. Bring a quart jar (in which you can bring home some thick maple sugar water to finish boiling down into syrup).
3. If you plan to stay for supper, bring a potluck dish. We’ll have a camp stove.
4. Supper will be about 5:30PM. Plan to leave 7:30 p.m. or sooner.
5. Plan on 90 minutes of travel from the Twin Cities.
Some years there’s a carpool, check with
Every year is different. Some years there’s snow.
(Click on the image for a larger photo.)
Some years there’s not.
There’s always fire and steam.
The big tank behind the steam holds 100 gallons of sap. One year we had another 60 in plastic jugs. Forty gallons of sap boils down into one gallon of syrup.
Usually the roads are messy.
Some years are great for little kids
And, whether it’s in tea or oatmeal, the semi-simmered sap water is always sweet.
“Cabin-fever?”
Tired of the warm stale air at home and work?
Spring is stirring, long before the moss is freshly-green.
Come, be in the world, surging to life, a life still hidden, but powerful
and SWEET!
(Of course the sap had to be collected, before it could be boiled down. Here are four photos of tapping the trees, which usually happens 3-4 weeks before.)
