It's Maine Maple Sunday

It's Maine Maple Sunday today. Celebrated every 4th Sunday of March, Maple Sunday is the sweetest day in Maine's calendar of events, quite literally and figuratively. Why not, we produce the best maple syrup in the planet [though a lot of places claim that title too]. Anyway, I'm not really too crazy about maple syrup except that I cannot eat my pancakes, waffles and french toast without it. Well, not really too crazy huh. But for my Sweetie... she can cook dishes with a dash of maple syrup... like her recycled left-over ham on pineapple and maple syrup. OMG... it is something to-die-for [not quite literally though]. LOL.

[my recycled sap bucket]

And just so you know... while waiting for the economy to take a different route up... I made myself productive by tapping some of our maple trees outback. And since I am not really into Maple Syrup production... I don't have any of those standard equipments used for tapping sap. I used recycled juice and milk bottles or gallons to collect the sap from the tree. And that I think... makes my sap organic. wink*

[standard sap buckets used by Maine farmers]

And since I really don't know how to make maple syrup I have a friend who produce maple syrup for business... so I brought all the sap I collected to him for cooking.

He has a big syrup boiler where he cooks the sap. And it takes 50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. That is why he doesn't use recycled bottles to collect sap... but meters upon meters of plastic pipes attached to the tree and to a motor to suck the sap up faster that goes straight to the boiler.

And there is your sweet Sunday.