Sugar house

Maple syrup production is an important activity at this time of year in northeast Ohio. This afternoon we drove to the little town of Chardon in Geauga County- only about 25 minutes from home- to buy gift packages of maple syrup for some friends. We also came home with the fixin's for a waffle or pancake supper for ourselves. I'm thinking waffles for Sunday supper maybe?

They weren't working in the sugar house today, but the sap was still running from the trees...not into buckets the old fashioned way, but through the blue tubing you can see in the picture. The tubing snakes from tree to tree throughout the large stand of maple trees, and the sap flows through it to the sugar house where it is processed. We didn't get to see the processing today, but we came home with some yummy maple syrup.

We're experiencing a cold spell right now; it's currently 26 degrees and has been below freezing for most of the week, so some of the trees haven't started producing (if that's the right word) sap yet. The syrup we bought was from trees tapped a couple of weeks ago...the early producing trees.