Maple Syruping Season

Ok, so if I don't get back to blogging my Grandma might take my head off!!!  While we've been up to a lot lately, we've mostly been busy with our syrup production so I might as well fill you all in on that :)

First let me explain that we live in the city.  We live so close to our next door neighbor that I could reach out out kitchen window and into his living room.  We live on a busy street that is a semi-main street that runs through our entire city- the largest city bordering the city of Detroit.  So we are by no means in maple country.  Or any kind of country for that matter!  Yet three years ago Jon got one of those zany ideas in his head and this time it was that he wanted to make his own maple syrup.  Right here in the middle of the city!!!  The first year he tapped a few trees and boiled the sap in our kitchen.  We got one pint of syrup.  Last year he tapped a few more trees- enough to embarrass me- and boiled the sap in our neighbor's backyard in his old brick oven.  We got three pints of syrup.  This year we have 18 taps- both at our house and at a family friend's house (who at least lives in the woods!).  People drive really slowly by our house now, because all of our trees have one if not two milk jugs hanging off of them to collect sap.  But the back yard really takes the cake.  Jon decided that this year he needed to build his own evaporator to boil sap.  Its a serious monstrosity in and of itself, but then he enclosed it in an old screen tent with the giant smoke stack sticking out and well, lets just say is not classy!!  But nonetheless, we are knee deep in sugar season.  The boys helped tap all the trees.  They've helped collect the sap day after day.  When we boil, they help daddy haul all the firewood into the tent, making a giant stack of logs to feed the evaporator.  And we sit for hours inside the "sugar shack" amidst a giant cloud of sugary steam- reading books, roasting marshmallows, visiting with family and friends who have stopped by to join in the fun.  Thus far we have 6 pints of beautifully pure maple syrup- and its still quite early in the season!  We're hoping for a big boil this weekend and another next weekend, and if we're lucky we'll get enough sap for daddy to take a day off in the middle of the week :)  Hope you enjoy the pictures and little video I put together.  And if you see our backyard smoking, feel free to stop by and visit for a little while!

Video:  http://youtu.be/cwvcx9fkGBQ