Our Trip to the Sugar House

Forget about crocuses and kites,
spring in the mountains of Vermont means maple syrup, skiing and mud!

Team 5 visited Brown's Sugar House in East Dover, just down the road from our school.
We had two kind parent volunteers, Alicia and Howard.
 Trips can't happen without helpers and we thank them very much.   

Tasting sap

The arch

Jeff shows us the evaporator

Checking the temperature

Rick shows us a Sugar Maple

Gently tapping the tree

Sap drip, drip, drips from the spout.

The lid keeps dirt and water out.

Back to the sugar house.

The collecting tank

This vaccuum system pumps the sap in to the tank.

Some sugar houses use tubing to collect the sap.
Our host's believe buckets make for better tasting syrup.

Rick is this student's father and show us the boiling sap.

At first the bubbles are big,

but as the sap boils down to syrup the bubbles get smaller.

Archer (my son) came along!  He loves the book "Sugaring" By Jesse Hass.

Jeff uses the dipper to test and see if the syrup is ready

Comparing the grades of syrup

The syrup is pumped through many filters to remove "sugar sand".

Draining out the syrup that is ready.

Syrup...

Is...

Delicious!

At the end of the season, they have to restock the wood shed.
It takes a lot of wood to boil all that sap!

Thanks to Jeff, Rick and Chris for hosting us at Brown's Sugar House.
We had a great time and learned a lot!

*****Thanks also to Colby Dix for taking these terrific photos.*****