Maple Festival in Vermont

My friend, Liz and I went to Whitingham, VT on March 28, to attend the annual Maple Festival. (Whitingham is known as the birthplace of Brigham Young and we visited one of the memorials on our way to one of the sugar houses). It was a warm, Spring day (about 60 degrees), and a great day to be outdoors, enjoying the scenery and visiting five sugar makers. There are 18 sugar makers in the town, and 8 of them were having an open house for the festival. We began our tour at the elementary school, enjoying a lunch, and then the crafts fair with many interesting booths of hand made projects.

The smell of fresh syrup was a welcome greeting at each sugar house. Some families tap only a few hundred trees, and others many, many more. Most of them use a pipeline system to collect the sap. Each family offered treats such as a taste of fresh maple syrup, ice cream, a maple syrup shake, and crackers and Cabot cheeses. All were delicious. We were amazed at the amount of wood needed to provide the heat, and one question we forgot to ask, was about the amount of cord wood they must have ready for the season. We did ask a lot of other questions, however, and details of the process were explained so we could understand. One farm continues to use horses to collect the sap. Their sugar house is deep in the woods--a nice walk through a large pasture, and into the snowy woods. The Percheron horses were patiently standing near the sugar house, when we arrived late in the afternoon. Learning about this process and the hard work to prepare for the season, dependance on the weather, etc. made me appreciate maple syrup even more. The odor in each sugar house made me want to eat pancakes with warm maple syrup at each stop we made.