Sunday and the sugar houses

I really should take a moment to share about my Sunday, as another one is fast approaching. This past Sunday, I went with Carrie to breakfast at Denny's. We met up with Elissa and drove to two maple sugar houses. Maple sugar is big in Vermont. It's famous. And I learned so much!!

The first one was at Shelburne Farms, in Shelburne. It was about 20 minutes from the office. There is a large farm with cattle, sheep, goats and llamas. We hiked up a hill to one of the sugar houses. They have two sugar houses and do over 500 taps. We watched on of the workers explaining the tapping process. They are careful to not overtap a tree. They attach a big bucket that looks like it's about 2-3 gallons of sap. The rate of the buckets filling depends on several things - the tree girth/age, weather and length of tapping time. Some trees can fill up 3 buckets a day of sap and go for weeks at that pace. Eventually, the hole closes up and that's the end of the season for that tree. We then went into a sugar house and watched the process. It takes 40 gallons of sap to produce o1 gallon of sugar. They have a big vat that is heated by wood and stirred constantly. They are always checking the levels (3") and making sure the temperature stays steady. It smelled sugary and woodsy in the sugar house. They explained the grades of maple sugar and let us sample. Fancy, is harvested at the beginning of the season and is lighter in color. Grade A is prime season maple sugar. Grade B and C are thicker and darker because of the natural bacteria changing in cell structure. Sometimes the workers have to work around the clock if they are having a big harvest. It seems like the amount really depends on the weather. The weather has to be warmish in the daytime (40) and below freezing at night (20 is good). The season of harvesting maple sugar is only about 4 weeks long. Shelburne farms does tours of the cheese making process during the summer. I will check that out for sure.

We then went to Palmer's sugar house, which is a much smaller farm also in Shelburne. There we saw a similar vat and heating process. They had maple cotton candy, sugar on snow, syrup and candy. We tried sugar on snow. I have to say that I am not a huge fan of sugar on snow. If it was punch on snow, that would rock. But there aren't any punch trees. I think coconut on snow might be tasty. But I think it would really change the whole concept. I am glad I did a very Vermont touristy thing. We had a great time doing it too.

Tonight is The Apprentice and bowling. I can't believe our team is doing so well! Thank heaven for handicaps!!