Sunday, March 29, 2009

Lessons in Syrup



So the funny thing about maple syrup is that the effort/ return ratio is NOT equal. Not even in the littlest way. In order to get 1 gallon of syrup you have to have 40 gallons (yep, you read that right!) of sap. We knew this going into it but I don't think we really understand what 40 gallons of anything looked like.
After 3 weeks of collecting sap and a freezer FULL of sap we needed to find a solution-and fast. I talked to as many people as I could about how to process the stuff and the more I heard the less I wanted to go through the process. Suffice it to say when people start saying things like: "It's takes days of watching it for hours-sometimes day and night.." and "I ruined my entire kitchen plus every pot I owned boiling it down..", you know you have gotten in over your head.



So being the city slicker that I am, I decided to call the High School who runs a sugar shack (there are so many reasons to have the syrup in a shack of it's own) and asked if I could donate about 30 gallons of maple sap in exchange for whatever amount of syrup they could make from it. They were very kind-took all of my sap-and even gave me a beautiful 1/2 gallon of syrup in exchange. The kids were a little disappointed that our syrup wasn't made from OUR sap but I walked away feeling VERY proud of myself, vowing to savor every last bite of pancakes from now on, and wondering what adventure we'd find ourselves in next.

5 comments:

Cristi said...

That is an awesome solution.
I love reading your adventures.

Love
Cristi

Andrea said...

Wow. That's a whole lot of sap. And I think your trade was brilliant. Some things are better left to the experts. :)

Michelle Burk said...

And that's why you're amazing! Great idea! How'd you think of that? Pure inspiration, I'm sure.

Sara said...

Good for you for trying something new! It sounds like you came up with a good solution to your sap overload. Yikes! 40 gallons of sap to one gallon of syurp?

LeAnn said...

Chelise you are amazing!! How fun!! It looks cold at your house It was about 90 degrees here in AZ yesterday come visit us!! LeAnn