Visiting the Sugar Shack

Saturday the 23rd we went to the Maple Syrup celebration in Harrisville. It was put on by the Alcona High School FFA and since our friends' daughter (who is also the only young woman in our branch) was involved, we figured we'd go up and support Morgan and see what it was all about.

 We weren't exactly sure where we were going, but we followed the signs

and eventually found our way to the Sugar Shack!

It's part log cabin (on the right) and part cooking shed where they process the sap into syrup and also process hogs and chickens for FFA projects.  

The tree on the sign is a sugar maple, which is the best of the maple trees for producing sweet sap that's good for syrup. We went in and got in line for some pancakes, syrup and sausage.

 Dave and I really enjoyed the pancakes and the syrup was DELICIOUS. I am notoriously picky about syrup and I absolutely fell in love with real maple syrup. It is sweet and maple-y and t h i n, just like I like my syrup. Thick syrup is not welcome in my house or on my breakfast foods, but this stuff was uh-mazing.

 Jed got an awkward picture of me enjoying my pancakes.

 We thought since Jed loves pancakes, he'd be ready to eat, but he met a little friend and they had a great time talking and looking at some ladybugs that were hanging out in the window.

 Hank sampled orange juice for the first time and fell IN LOVE. We have a major OJ fan on our hands!

 After we got done eating our pancakes, we walked across a snowy field to take a hay ride. It was a nice warm day and the snow was incredibly mushy and Jed wasn't too thrilled about walking in the snow.

 Hank had an easier time since he got to ride!

The horses and hay wagon were waiting for us at the end of our mushy ride. We climbed aboard and after enough people showed up, the FFA kids took us on a ride to see a grove of maple trees that had been tapped for syrup.

 

 They use two different gathering methods in the grove of trees--the bag method and the traditional bucket method. Both are effective but the bags keep the sap a bit cleaner. There was also a big tank that they empty the bags and buckets into to store the syrup before the sap gathering truck comes around.

Jed and Hank had a blast on the wagon ride! Jed loved being able to talk to Hank and Hank was excited to see Jed up close and personal.

 After we got done we went to hear how the FFA kids collect the sap and turn it into syrup. The kids were so knowledgeable and personable and I really enjoyed listening to them. You can see just to the right of the girl's hair a small black hole in the tree trunk. That is the hole that she just drilled and then fitted with a small spout to drain the sap.

A spout, bucket and drop of sap

 Once the buckets are full of sap, they are emptied into the large holding tank. When the holding tank gets full, they come around with this big truck that has a hose on the back and suck it up into a tank.

 Then the sap is pumped into the metal tank on the right (the one with the steps leading up to it) and then pumped from that tank through a small tube (it is what looks like the gray line on the back of the building) down into the syrup cooker.

This is the syrup cooker, where many gallons of sap are cooked down into syrup. It can process 1000 gallons of sap into syrup in about 6 hours. It takes 44 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup, which is probably why it is so incredibly expensive! The sap is filtered several times during the process, and once it has turned to syrup, it is filtered once more as it is bottled, ensuring that there is nothing but pure Michigan maple syrup is in each bottle.

We all had a great day! Dave and I learned something, Hank fell in love with orange juice, and Jed had a blast playing in the ooey gooey mud in his snazzy orange boots! And did we buy any syrup? Unfortunately, they were sold out by the time we made it to the store. Maybe next year!