Don Samuel of Sugar Grove and his family decided to take full advantage of the mild weather during the first weekend of March and learn a little more about maple syrup.
“Having the maple trees in our back yard, I’m super excited to see what we can do,” Samuel said at the Maple Sugaring Days festival at Creek Bend Nature Center in St. Charles.
The annual event, sponsored by the Forest Preserve District of Kane County, included a chance to watch a naturalist tap into trees in order to illustrate the practice of collecting sap and eventually turning it into syrup.
Barb McKittrick, environmental education manager at Creek Bend, said the event dates back to 1995 and has continued to be one of the more popular two-day attractions at the center.
The warm weather throughout February, McKittrick said, created a deluge of sap which has been running in greater quantities than usual.
“We’ve had a lot of sap because it was warm and some of it actually spoiled, which was a shame,” she said. “Climate change is definitely having an impact on the time we do the sugaring days, and we’ve started to move it up earlier in the year.”
The recent weather “was perfect for sap flow and we’ll have a lot,” McKittrick promised before the event. “We’ll have plenty to boil down and showcase, but it won’t be the sappiest season we’ve had because, unfortunately, of the spoilage.”
McKittrick said about 2,000 people were expected to attend the two-day event.
“This is always a great family event and after people have been cooped up for the winter, this is one of the first things to welcome spring, so they love to get out and be together,” she said.
The event again included a lot of hands-on opportunities including drilling into a log, tapping a tree, games, indoor crafts and more.
After taking part in the event, visitors often vow to go home and tap into their own back yard maple trees, McKittrick said.
“All you need is one tap and one tree and you can easily make it (syrup) at home,” she said. “You can even make it in your kitchen in a crock pot. It takes a long time, but you can do it.
“People also like good food and we have a maple cafe where they can have Culver’s custard with maple syrup and maple cookies on top of it or a sundae,” McKittrick said about the event, which even included a jazz band performing inside the center.
Ashley Samuel said this was the family’s first time at the event and that the goal “was to teach the children about maple sugaring and life in the olden days.”
“My children just read the book ‘Little House in the Big Woods’ so we had a little pregame going,” she said. “We’re big pancake and syrup fans. We just had some yesterday.”
Gabriella Samuel, 10, said butter was her favorite thing on pancakes but admitted “it would be cool to make some syrup of our own.”
“I’m going to try the ice cream today with the syrup,” she said.
Linda Brubaker of Geneva said this was also her first time at the event and explained that she was from Ohio “where there are a lot of festivals” concerning maple syrup.
“I’m glad there is something like this. They are really fun and I’m looking forward to going through the various stations,” she said. “I’ve never collected and boiled down syrup, but my family has.”
Amber Ross of Woodstock, a naturalist at the nature center, was in charge Saturday of boiling down the syrup on a wood fire which enveloped her in smoke.
“As far as how much we’ll boil down, it depends on how much is collected,” Ross explained. “Unfortunately, the sap doesn’t have a long shelf life when it’s warm like this. It spoils and gets cloudy. On cold days like we had mid-week, it lasts longer. Right now, we’re only sitting on about 10 gallons of sap which will yield about a pint for us but the trees are flowing now.”
Sara Mackh of Elgin was watching her daughter Theresa, 9, drill a hole in a maple log and said she “was hoping to have some fun and maybe learn about the process.”
“We do have a maple tree and maybe we’ll try it,” she said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
