This weekend is open house time for New Hampshire's Sugar Houses, where they make maple syrup. We went to the Remick Museum and had a great time.
The farm has 250 "taps" on their sugar maple trees. They make 16 gallons of syrup per season. They focus mostly on education and in house sales, rather than making as much as they can to ship out.
They gather sap from the pails daily.
Julia tried eating syrup on snow. It tasted like creamy, sweet ice cream.
We enjoyed a wagon ride courtesy of the big horses.
The farm had lots of animals: sheep, chickens, goats, cows, horses...
Bulls...
Kids enjoyed the warming weather. The fog and clouds faded by mid-day.
The most exciting part was the sugar house.
It was hard to pay attention to the details of the seminar because of the smoke.
The smoke smelled like sweet heaven. It was like a spa experience for sugar lovers. The scent was not overbearing. It was a gentle, sweet, warm, maple. It was the kind of smell you cannot get enough of, like a baking apple pie. 
The sugar house was full of sweet smells, warm colors, and sweet things to taste.
Lighter color syrups are Grade A, made from the freshest sap, gathered at the beginning of the sap season. Darker ambers are Grade B, and have a stronger flavor. Personally I think they are both good. I don't know if I'd pick one over the other. It's nice to have both for variety.
We ended our tour with pancakes topped with maple syrup.
3 comments:
This looks like a really fun outing and makes me doubly want a good solid outing day with my family. Thanks for this post, and the beautiful pictures.
Thanks for reading!
What gorgeous photos and a good rundown on the process too!
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