Sugar Shack Sunday

Last Sunday a big group of us ventured out of Halifax to go to a maple syrup farm (is farm the right term??) between Truro and Tatamagouche. Thank goodness for visitors is all I can say, as I haven't been out of Halifax since Christmas apart from to go to the airport and jet out for all these interviews. Tough life I lead. I am currently in Boston interviewing at MIT. But more about that some other time.

There was still a fair bit of snow out at Sugar Moon farm, and we heard that the maple sap had just started running that very day! Very exciting. Evidently a freeze-thaw cycle is needed to get the sap to run and it runs for about 4-6 weeks. One tree may yield about 20l of sap, which boils down to 1/2 l maple syrup. Pretty labour and energy-intensive.

After a long wait we settled down to stuffing ourselves with maple sausages, maple baked beans, maple butter, maple coffee, pancakes, scones and of course lashings of syrup. I haven't felt so full in a long time. A long hike in the woods and a big snowball fight soon sorted us out after that.