Maple syrup is like refined silver children's sermon

This past Sunday, I had children's sermon. For the beginning of March, I had to think for a little bit. I looked at what I had been doing most of the week. I had been boiling maple sap down into syrup. As I looked at a kettle, the verse from psalms kept coming to me, refined like silver. So I looked up the verse Psalms 66:10, "For you God, tested us; you refined us like silver." I started from this thought. I took to church with me, a maple syrup pan that happened to be empty, a small jar of maple syrup and some small pieces of bread for the children to drip and taste when we were done.

I had the children come forward, asked about their week and explained that I had been busy making maple syrup. I told them that a verse had come to me while I was working. Let's look at the verse Psalms 66:10-12. As we read through it, we looked at the " we went through fire and water and came to abundance."
First what does abundance mean? One little boy answered " a lot".  Exactly, it means that you would have a lot!  So when they refine silver, they heat it in the fire and remove all the junk. Well that is kind of what we do with the maple sap. We collect it, pour it through a filter to remove any dirt and then we put it in a pan and boil it. Just like the verse says about through the fire, we boil and boil and boil and boil. There is steam rolling, but when we are done we have abundance of maple syrup or at least something delicious! So we have taken the sap and heated it to "refine"  or purify it and converted it into maple syrup.

We need to remember that God will test us through problems or difficulties in life and by doing that he is "refining" us. He is taking out more and more bad things and making us more pure, more like him. So the next time you have syrup remember that God will work on us too, to
make us sweeter!
We closed in prayer and then I gave each child a piece of bread and let them dip it into the small jar of maple syrup and taste it.

Slowing down?

Just when I thought things might slow down just a little bit - the weather turned NICE!! The Maple syrup is done and all the equipment is cleaned and put away. It was a long season this year as we had taps out for almost a month plus I was helped Andrew cook his down too. I cooked over 255 gallons of sap into syrup in my kitchen through March and part of April.

  Robert participated in 4-H in the Mall and received several scholarships for events.
And now we have had BEAUTIFUL weather! The sun has been shining and I should do some yard work. We had a tree cut down in the yard so that needed to be cleaned up. Gary is pruning apple trees (hopefully gets them done before the blossom) and that takes cleaning up. Plus it is now time to start the flower beds. Wait I got a new front porch this March, so there is some landscaping that needs down and extra parts and pieces still need cleaned up from that.
Do I ever get to quit cleaning up something???

Okay, I'm done now - just overwhelmed with "cleaning up"  The daffodils are wonderful this year! Make sure you take time and smell a few or cut a bouquet. Gary brought me in some just the other night:) One of my favorites!

Make Ahead Blueberry French Toast

As a recipe for the recipe swap with Karen Ehman's book study. Here is a great breakfast recipe: Bakes Blueberry French Toast
12 slices of day old bread or 1 loaf Italian bread (cubed)
2 (8oz) pkgs of cream cheese (cubed)
1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries
2 cups milk
1/3 cup maple syrup
12 eggs

Spray 9x13 inch pan. Layer about 1/2 the cubed bread first, then all of the cubed cheese, and next all of the blueberries. Then add the rest of the bread on top. Mix the milk, eggs and syrup together and pour over the top of the bread layers.

Refrigerate over night

Remove from the fridge in morning and let sit at room temp for 1/2 hour. Then bake at 350degrees covered for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake additional 30 more minutes.  Serve with maple syrup while still hot.

Agriculture Minute - Maple Syrup Season

Well, it is one of he first sings of spring here at our house, when everyone starts watching the temperatures to see if it goes above freezing during the day and below freezing at night. When the snow starts to melt a little and we start seeing more daylight. This is the beginning of Maple Syrup Season. This year we started on March 1 by tapping a few trees and then we finished up on the morning of March 2.

Tapping trees is a simple process that actually come from the Native Americans, but for my family it comes from my Paw. As a kid, we would go to Paw's and help bring in sap and help tap the trees. We never got to cook down our own sap until all of us became adults. Mom did get a chance to learn from Paw, but we have learned from Mom and from the things that we can remember. Anyhow, we use the plastic tubing and plastic taps. We take a drill and drill bit and drill a hole into the southern side of a maple tree, about 2" deep. You then put the tap in place and use a hammer to "tap" it into place. The tubing is then put into a bucket or jug to catch the sap. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. But we collect the sap in buckets each day and then I cook it down.

Cooking down is fairly simple process until you get to the end. To start we put the strained sap into large kettles and put it on the stove to evaporate the water content of the sap. This involves opening the windows in the house as it gets very humid in the house. People who make sap for more than a hobby , like us, usually have a "Sugar Shack" where they will cook down their syrup because of the humidity.  but we do it in our kitchen with lots of open windows. As it cooks it goes through several different stages. We learned to "Read the Bubbles" which is a very non-scientific way of making syrup. But as you watch the syrup, it is done when it starts to foam up like the reaction of baking soda and vinegar. The syrup will foam up and then it is jarred. We don't sell our syrup, we use it for gifts and for our own use, but it is definitely better than the artificial stuff that you get at the store.
When I get a chance and my computer back, I will try to post a few pictures of our syrup making. Maple Syrup is a large industry in the states of Vermont, Wisconsin, Michigan but there are producers in most of the New England States.

For videos of maple syrup production and different techniques, go to www.youtube.com and search maple syrup production. There are a lot of videos showing different ways to make Maple Syrup. But now you know how we make our syrup!

Maple Syrup Season!

Okay spring isn't here, but it is certainly getting closer as it is Maple Syrup Season at our house and in the area. We spent this evening getting our buckets ready and the taps and the tubing. Then we had time to tap the first 6 trees. We are very fortunate that Ron & Marlys allow us to use their trees down in the woods and in their front and back yards. Last year we didn't make syrup, so Garrett doesn't seem to remember doing this before, but he caught on rather quickly and we have quiet the tapping team. Robert felt that he was big enough to move up on the ranks of jobs and he did part of the drilling this year, while Garrett operated the hammer. Now we will see how long the weather cooperates for our sap run this year. (Check out the picture of Garrett - his tongue is out just a bit, must have been concentrating)