Saturday, October 11, 2014

I wake up this morning craving a cup of Joe, instead of my usual tea, and decide to walk on over to the little convenience store close to where I'm camping; and there it is...that tie-dye shirt!  Now, I'm not a superstitious person, but I do believe in the power of positive thinking and choose to see this as a great sign.


I'm off the Supercharger grid once more, following the recommendations from http://www.yankeefoliage.com/peak-foliage-forecast-map/ which has lured me to the State of Vermont. 
Pic taken of area behind my campsite


Breathtaking!














I have nothing in particular planned for today, but after seeing the rows of maple syrup across from the Keurig, I'm curious about the "manufacturing" process of this amber colored liquid and call upon Kitt to find me a "sugar house".   She locates Hidden Springs Maple.

After watching a short informational video, I learn it takes ~43 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup. 



I then get invited down to the storage and bottling room to see the 4 different grades of maple syrup: Fancy Grade, Grade A Medium, Grade A Dark, and Grade B.  Each of the grades refers to the intensity of color and flavor, not the quality.

After sampling all 4 grades, I make my purchases and head down the road.



I barely get Kitt planing before I see Green Mountain Orchards off to the right, a U-pick apple orchard.  I stop and pick every kind of apple they have












and wash it all down with a tie-dye of golds, oranges and reds.  An end to a perfect day.





2 comments:

  1. I've been looking for a shirt like that, and a place I can wear it, all my life! Actually maybe that's the place and I just need to switch to Grade A Maple Syrup. Figure that's how U got so high off the ground, so it couldn’t bee all that bad? Looks like Ur having fun, and off the crutches so soon after all those fall color jumps.
    Wonder what they do with the remaining 42 gallons of waste to make the stuff?
    Two of my hives have EFB (I think) so I went ahead and ordered your stuff with the meds to help the little buggers out. Going to start feeding pollen subs as soon as they are off the meds.

    Juice on

    BOC

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  2. Sorry to hear about the EFB. Geeze, if it isn't one thing, it's another.
    Kind of interesting how they process the sap into syrup. The 42 gallons of water evaporate off as steam when the sap is heated. Some of the sugar houses "recycle" that steam and use it, others don't. Annual variations, and the time of harvest within the season determines the grade of the maple syrup.
    Keep in touch.

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