Maple Sugaring at Dodge

Pancakes and real maple syrup were served up at the Environmental Elementary School across the street.  We made it gluten free for the middle girls by bringing our own pancakes for them.  

We are lucky enough to have a nature center (and preschool) down the street, and every year they invite members and the public alike to a maple syrup pancake breakfast.  Last year we swung in for the earliest possible shift (7:30) and then out again to get to music lessons on time, forgoing the maple sugar tour.  Not so this year!  We had the week off of music lessons, and were able to stay and get the full effect.

The Maple Sugar/Syrup House

The tour was fabulous.  The mid March weather gave us a mild winter day, full of freezing and thawing--just right for making maple syrup.  The kids enjoyed snapping ice bubbles that form in late winter and our guide remarked that it seeing kids up to this sort of behavior was a perfect indicator that it was maple syrup time. 

We saw how they tapped the trees, boiled the sap and even got to taste a little maple sugar.  Though it looks nearly identical to light brown sugar the taste is incomparable.  That unmistakable maple flavor is locked in to every crystal of sugar.  While the maple sugar is made in the huge cauldron hanging over the fire, there was a much more sophisticated system used for making the syrup used at the pancake breakfast.  A rectangular table (actually a stove) is covered in a maze of metal channels through which the ever-thickening sap is sent as it cooks down to maple syrup.  All the movement keeps the sap from burning.    

Lucky for us, we also got to try a special experimental concoction of maple caramel one of the naturalists had made the day before, which was exceptional.  Needless to say, when little bottles of syrup showed up for sale at preschool, a couple made it home for pancake breakfasts at our house.

Nova's 10th Birthday

Nova is 10!  My parents hosted her family birthday dinner, and Grandpa made his famous, every-different always wonderful broccoli cheese soup (at Nova's request).  We also had ham and fruit.  Uncle Matt and all the grandparents were there.   I will have to check around for pictures.  Ours are mysteriously missing.

Charles insisted on getting Nova Legos for her birthday.  Nova has loved Legos for a long time.  I remember how upset she was at about four, because she thought Legos were only for boys.  We were quite surprised by this, and she soon had some Legos of her own.  Nova has always loved to build things and to solve mechanical problems.  Over the last year or two we've seen an interest in programming arise through scratch software.  Why not combine it all with Lego's that make robots that you can program and control yourself?! (Just ignore all price tags and imagine this toy has something to do with your daughter going to MIT in the future--at least, that is what I was told to do).  She was thrilled and has made many impressive robots in the months since.  Again, imagine pictures.


To celebrate with her friends, Nova had another sleepover.  Last year was Nova's (and our) first sleepover.  It went so well that all subsequent parties have been sleepovers--beware success!

This year we had a bit of a candy theme.  After making build-your-own pizzas, we took the kids downtown to Candyland.  In business since 1932, this idyllic candy shop is just like something out of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, which we watched when we returned home (the 1971 Gene Wilder version).

Here they all are at the start of the night.   Pillow fights, gift opening, movie watching, all the typical sleep-over things ensued.  

 

I almost forgot the cake.  This was the year of the layer cake.  Charlotte had five layer blueberry cake. Nova requested a rainbow layer cake.  We had one apricot layer, one boysenberry layer and a raspberry layer, frosted with whipped cream.