It's maple syrup season again! We made our annual pilgrimage to Shady Grove Maple Company to learn how they make maple syrup. Aila is old enough now to understand parts of the process, so that is exciting. It was a little cold when we went, so all the sap was frozen, but we still got to enjoy some maple sugar candies, and pancakes with maple syrup of course!

We learned that this farm processes sap from over 21,000 trees, making it one of the largest maple syrup operations in the province. Things have come a long way since I visited a maple syrup farm when I was a kid. Back then, the sap was boiled in a large open dish. Now, it is done in a computer-controlled closed tank, and the hot steam is used to preheat the incoming sap for more energy efficient processing. The sap is also run though a reverse-osmosis system to remove most of the water before it even reaches the boiling tank.

For this photo I tried to get the kids to pose in front of the growth chart. As you can see, Kai is getting pretty good at standing, as long as he has something to hold onto.

Technical Details: This picture was taken with my 5D Mark II + EF 17-40L at 21mm, ISO 400, f/4 for 1/50th of a second.