Sugar Shacks

On to the next sugar shack!  This place is awesome.  They preserved the original sugar shack which is the small one above with the open door.  The new one is behind it.

The original farmhouse has been renovated too.

 This is also a Christmas tree farm.

 They have the most beautiful barn.

A 'cow high, pig low' fence.

 Inside, they have a mini sugar shack on display.

 A tapped maple tree is on display in the area where they sell their goods.

 There are samples of everything they sell.

 Most sugar shacks are dark, so many of them display their different grades of syrup in a window so you can see the difference in colors between them.

 Maple kielbasa and maple pulled pork for sampling..

 Here is the heart of their shack. this sure wouldn't fit in the original shack.

Maple sugar candy, maple coated nuts and maple fudge.  Are you sick of maple yet?  At this point, The Blog Tech and his wife were still sampling everything.

 As you drive through this entire county you see the maple piping systems throughout all of the wooded areas.  When the season ends, they roll this all up and store it in their barns.

All of the shacks are so very different.  This is the next one we visited.

 I have to tell you, the element that makes this trip so much fun is the people.  My god are these people friendly.  We visit anywhere from 12-15 shacks each year and we have to move pretty fast to fit them all in.  We could easily spent hours at any given shack. The people that participate welcome you with open arms and are only too willing to sit and chat for as long as you want to stay.  In the tradition of 'boiling off',  it's an all day, sometimes an all night, activity.  It's a time for people to sit and catch up on what has been going on all Winter.  And you are more than welcome to join in.

 Most shacks put pieces of their equipment on display.

 Drums of syrup ready to be bottled.

 The keeler is the bucket that catches the maple water.  Originally they were made of wood, now they are galvanized metal and most have been replaced by the vacuum system.

 Here we go again...more maple food!  The bag in the back is maple cotton candy.

You can see the buckets at the base of these trees.  Many of the shacks still tap trees close by to uphold tradition.

More tomorrow!  I'm not done yet.