The Sugar Bush and March Break

It's March Break.  Middle of March.  The clocks have gone forward.  The end of Winter approaches.

Things we have already done:
Gotten nails done (a girlie treat with Kid #1) and had a lovely Thai lunch with friends.
Seen Rango with the kiddies and had a great pub dinner.

That's only two days in.  Today we decided to head out to the sugar bush.  There is one close(ish) to my parents place and so we all met up.

Now I have to admit that I don't have a whole lot of experience with the sugar shack.  Even though I lived in Montreal for seven years I didn't go to an 'out of the city' sugarbush.  They held something at the Atwater Market for us city folk who didn't have the means to get themselves out of the city and get to a proper sugaring off.  Let me tell you though, it's no joke in Quebec.  These sugar bush things are serious.  Legend (that's what it amounts to for me as yet) has it that one can go for a sugaring off and get endless amounts of food and maple syrup to go on it.  The food is even cooked with maple syrup.  There is the obligatory making candy with hot syrup and cold snow.  There is the horse driven wagon riding... it sounds amazing.

The Sugar Bush that we went to had pancakes.  Not cooked with maple syrup but certainly served on the side (it was cold though - boo - warm syrup is so much better).  We had the wagon ride though.

Yeah - that's me with Kid #1, Kid #2 and my DAD.

What made it even better was that wagon ride was led by a family friend so my Dad got a good chat in as well.

We saw how  they collect the syrup from the trees.  Both in the old way...

And in the new way....

And how they boil the stuff down to make it into proper maple syrup...

What can I say.  On a beautiful, sunny day at the end of winter in Ontario can you think of something more quintessentially Canadian to do?  Someday we'll drive ourselves down to Quebec and find our way to a big time sugaring off and I'll finally find out if all of the legends are true.  For now, we got a great walk in the fresh (brisk) air, met with family and ran into a friend and indulged in some pancakes and all around felt utterly and completely Canadian.... I even bought some stuff to bring home (hehehe... recipes to follow...)