My family produces maple syrup. I don't think I've ever blogged about that before, probably because we don't make very much money at it.
DW also home schools the kids. I don't think I've blogged about that either.
For the past four years, on the third Friday in March we open up our woods to local home school kids and offer an educational tour. I use the term local loosely because we usually have families from up to 80-100 miles away participating.
So, today is the day. We run two sessions, the AM session from 10 to noon, and the PM session from 2 to 4. We have 175 parents and kids scheduled for the morning and 45 scheduled for the afternoon. We'll have 5 stations this year, hosted by me, DW, my mom, my dad, and 9 yo DD1 will give it a shot by hosting her own station for the first time today. We've got about 107 gallons canned, and ready to be sold, and these home school families sure do buy the syrup.
Tomorrow we open up the woods to the community. Four years ago when we tried the open house for the first time, we had 700 people trudge through the woods. Each year since that number has dwindled, but we have a lot of fun with it. We'll see how successful we can be on St. Patty's day. We always serve pancakes with fresh maple syrup during the open house. My aunt makes Mickey Mouse pancakes for the kids. Tomorrow, she'll make 4 leaf clovers.
The open house usually leads to good sales too. Last year, the trees didn't run well until the second half of March, and we sold out of our entire inventory by time the weekend was over.
DW had the ideas for the home school tour and open house. Prior to that, my parents (and grand parents before) sold the syrup chiefly at local festivals and flea markets. We've found it to be much more efficient and effective to bring people to the woods and sell directly to them.
This is the 130th year that my family has produced syrup from the woods. I represent the 5th generation. We tap about 350 trees in 8 1/2 acres. Small potatoes compared to larger operations that tap thousands of trees, but it's a great family tradition.
Home School Tour at the Sugar Bush Today
March 16th, 2012 at 11:08 am
March 16th, 2012 at 12:12 pm 1331899941
March 16th, 2012 at 01:10 pm 1331903408
Wow! That seems like such a nice thing to do and fun for the kids! Good luck with your event!
March 16th, 2012 at 02:33 pm 1331908434
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March 18th, 2012 at 10:40 pm 1332110454
Jerry