A Day with Maple Syrup

We went on a nature walk to a pioneer homestead where they make maple syrup today. It was fun to watch the process and do some tasting.

Here is the handcrafted bucket they use to collect the sap. See all the ice? It was a cold day.

Here are the three cauldrons they would have used back in the day to boil the sap and reduce it down to the sugars. She is about to dump the bucket of sap into the large cauldron.

Here is a ladle full of cooked sap that has reduced into a caramel colored syrup but not quite ready for tasting.

We then walked into the Nature Center, just a hop, skip and a jump away to find these:

Can you say yum?

 In a different exhibit I found this poem next to a large model/globe of the earth. 

In case you can't read it, here is the poem:

This grand show

is eternal. It is always sunrise

somewhere; the dew is never

all dried at once; a shower is

forever falling; vapor is ever rising.

Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset,

eternal dawn and gloaming,

on sea and continents and

islands, each in its turn, as

the round earth rolls. 

~John Muir

A nice way to end a little journey. The earth as a poem. I say yes, because poetry CAN be found anywhere, even in a little nature center where children play. In a beautiful bottle of sugary syrup. Even in a child's laugh as they marvel over a globe looking for the mitten. It is everywhere I go.