Tapping the Trees

Have I ever mentioned how much I love maple syrup? I love maple syrup. Not the colored, flavored corn syrup that comes in a funny plastic bottle at Jewel, but the real stuff that is made from tree sap and tastes like the outdoors. So when I learned that there was a Maple Syrup Festival at North Park Nature Village last weekend, I had to pack up the kids and The Dad and go.

It was amazingly crowded when we got there at 10:15, with extremely limited parking (we found a spot in the lot by the recycling center) and folks backed up into the fire lane. They had vendors in the fire lane selling everything from coffee to garlic to Peruvian tchotchkes (The Dad and I split a coffee from Stivers Coffee and successfully diverted the kids from their requests for various noisemakers from the Peruvian wares), but the real action of the festival was inside the nature village center and behind it along its trail.

Did you know that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup? That sap is 97% water and 3% sugar? That they boil the sap for 8 hours to concentrate the sugar enough to make it palatable? That the amber color comes from the sugar carmelizing during the boiling? I learned all this from the volunteer at the head of the trail. The Boy, The Girl and The Tot were less interested -- they all wanted to get pancakes (with real maple syrup!) from the tent set up in the parking lot. A local church's men's club was running the food tent as a fundraiser; 2 pancakes and 3 sausage links went for $3.50/plate. We ate 3 between the five of us (The Girl had decided that she didn't want any).

The Boy and The Girl also made a stick and string craft of some sort, and were assisted by our former neighbor, who is now 14, tall and willowy. We never would have recognized him if he didn't recognize us. How did these kids get to be so big already? We went to the festival partially with our current neighbors, whose daughter is right between The Boy and The Girl in age. The Girl and our neighbor had such fun dancing to the tunes of the folk band playing in the nature center itself. The Boy ran into one of his classmates during the concert also, and shyly went up to say hello to her. It was a fun outing.

From Blogger Photos

Summer Wanes

We got up and out this morning to meet Cheryl and her kids at the North Park Village Nature Center. When we arrived in the center at 10 a.m., the guide asked us if we were there for the preschool program. We weren't--I did not know there was such a thing--but we decided to join anyway. I wish I had known about it earlier! Sean, the guide, was really good at both engaging and controlling about 15 kids aged 3-6. We read a book about water (The Water Dance) and then went outside to experiment with water and a trough of sand. The Girl was especially entranced by Sean and the outside activity, but The Boy got into it, too.

After about 1/2 an hour, I went back to find Cheryl and her kids in the discovery room. Her son joined in the river fun. Then we all went on a nature walk on the main loop. The Tot fell asleep in the sling during the walk. Around noon, we were all hungry, so we headed back to the parking lot.

I took the kids to Target for lunch and a few odds and ends. Afterwards, we stopped at a small grocery store on Peterson and Lincoln that I imagined was going to be like the Family Fruit Market. It was similar, but much smaller. At first, I thought it would be carry a lot of kosher products, given the number of Orthodox Jews I observed exiting the store, but it turns out that the specialty is Greek. We got some yummy, hand-formed Challah bread, bananas, rice milk, grape tomatoes, cauliflower, and fresh mozzarella cheese.

I took Jersey Avenue south to get home, mistakenly thinking it would turn into Kimball Avenue. Instead, it turned into Kedzie Avenue. The Boy said, "Hey, that's where S. lives!" so we turned down her street and ended up having an impromptu playdate with S., F., G., and their mother. On the way home, we stopped for another unplanned side trip: the gas station and car wash. The Girl has been begging me to go through the car wash every time she sees one or thinks about it, so I took The Great White Moose in for a bath after filling up her tank with gas. The Tot seems to have recovered from his fear of the car wash; he was wide-eyed and curious about it the trailer took us through the automatic car wash, but he did not once cry.

Last day

Today is the last day of summer vacation and I'm feeling uninspired about what to do with it. But in the middle of posting this, Cheryl called to invite us to go on a nature walk at North Park Village. Sounds good.