Life Outside the Inbox

When I was growing up, my elementary school would take us to watch maple syrup harvesting every year. We’d get to hike the trails, see the maple trees, learn how they tap the tree to collect sap and then boil it over a hot wood fire to turn it into syrup. I missed those trips and since there’s not much to do in March with the cold weather, we decided to take a road trip to Prince Edward County.

Maple in the County is a celebration in Prince Edward County (2.5 hours east of Toronto) for the hard labour of maple producers. After all, it takes 40 gallons of sap to create 1 gallon of liquid.

Looking at the map, we started our day in Picton where Honey Wagon Farms was hosting an all day pancake breakfast to raise funds for their local fire station. It was $10 a plate (all you can eat), served and cooked by their fire fighters. It was such a nice crowd and we could feel the neighbourly love. After our pancake smothered in delicious maple syrup, and double helpings of bacon and sausages, we headed into town. There we tried the maple latte at The Bean Counter which had live music. I wish we stayed around to enjoy it but we were eager to go on with our day as well. Latte was great, if I was paying the same place for Starbucks anyway, this would be the place to go.

While Honey Wagon Farms was great, I still really wanted a nice hike to see the maple syrup production process. Looking at the time, we figured we still had a few hours to spare so we drove to Vader’s Maple Syrup. There, Carl enjoyed our favourite childhood snack, maple taffy. Traditionally, maple syrup would be drizzled on a bed of snow/ice to harden and roll on a popsicle stick. While he enjoyed that, I went to grab a $2 grab of Ty’s maple syrup kettlecorn which was out of this world.

I was slightly disappointed though that we didn’t get a chance to re-live the production process, but the food and snacks alone was well worth it.

Hope to see you guys again next year Prince Edward County!!