Maple Syrple Peace

"Roses are Red; Violets are a Purple. Sugar is sweet and so's Maple Syrple."

A song by some guy sang sometime in the twentieth century. Maybe. (Roger Miller, "Dang Me")

My life is complete. I now know a word the rhymes with "purple". Syrple!

Ok, it's not a real word. 

It's really supposed to be "Syruuuuup" (or some silly nonsense). 

I love syrup. I love it like Will Ferrell in the movie "Elf". But true maple syrup comes with a hefty price tag. Ever wonder why real maple syrup costs so much?

One reason is because it takes 40-50 GALLONS of tree sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. 

Another reason is because somebody has to boil that sap down. 

Pancake syrup typically has NO maple syrup in it. It's just corn syrup and caramel color. So companies can sell pancake syrup for pennies compared to Maple Syrup. That makes the price of maple syrup seem outrageous. 

When my husband and I see something with a big price tag, we see it as a challenge; a chance to laugh in "the Man"'s face. A chance to do it ourselves. 

( Insert months of pondering and gathering supplies...)

We tapped some maple trees today!!!

When we decided to limit the amount of processed foods in our diet, my husband went into withdrawal. SUGAR withdrawal. Emotional shakes and fever set in as he mourned the loss of sugary greatness in his life. Since then, the search for a substitute was ON!

Honey

Maple Syrup

Agave

Brown Rice syrup

Sucanat

You name it, we tried it. After researching good and bad about them all, we rested on maple syrup and honey as our "go to" sweetners. 

And because we are who we are, we wanna make them both ourselves. 

So today, we started our maple syrplin' adventure. We are very open minded about our results and fully expect to fail in some way. We will learn from our failures and take a step closer to success. Or something like that... 

So remember I said it takes 40-50 gallons of tree sap to make 1 gallon of syrup? 

And remember I said "someone" has to boil that sap down?? 

Hello, my name is Sap Boiler. 

And this is the start of my 40-50 gallons...

See those two little drops? 

Gotta start somewhere!!

Wishing everyone out there Syrup Peace and...Hair Peace!!