The tour starts by the parking lot and winds through the woods where you can see some tapped trees, but also some great props. It was very interesting to see how things were 100+ years ago and how they've changed.
The purple area on the map is the only place that produces maple syrup. All the syrup in the world comes from this small area!
Since sap is mostly water, it has to be boiled for a long time to get syrup. Back in pioneer times (and even longer) the sap was boiled outside in a large kettle over an open fire because there is so much steam. It takes 50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup!
This is a "tree cookie" with tons of information about tapping. The taps only go in a little ways since the sap runs through the tree close to the bark.
Here you can see a scar left from a tap.
So curious!
These popular brands all had tags on them with numbers. The numbers were the percentage of real maple syrup ;) Aunt Jemima was the lowest there...I think her number was 1 (I might be wrong it was weeks ago! But really I couldn't believe how low those numbers were!).
Mmmm samples of REAL maple syrup!
We also learned that sometimes they would cook the syrup too long on purpose and call"It's sugaring!" then everyone would grab containers from the house and they would pour the quickly hardening syrup in the containers. It would then solidify and they would use it as sugar! They could just scrap some off and put it in whatever they needed!
More modern boiling method. See the vents in the ceiling:
It was a great day and such an informative field trip! This place is really huge (1400 acres?) and filled with all kinds of trees and flowers that grow in Ohio. They also offer so many conservation and horticulture programs; I know we'll be back there soon!
What a great field trip!! We had so much fun! We need to go back there this summer.
ReplyDeleteLaura! You really paid attention; what a good little field tripper you are :)
ReplyDeleteSo happy you guys had a great time; we did, too! And yes, the day was MUCH better!