When I was a kid, we used to go to the “cabane à sucre” (sugar shack) almost every year. I loved it. Around here, people have no clue what I’m talking about when I mention it. I want the souricettes to have this experience. It’s part of their heritage. So this year, I did some research and found out that this past weekend and next weekend are Maple Weekend in New York state. (Side note : I find it very odd that Maple Weekend spans TWO weekends…) There was a handy search feature that I used to find a sugar shack to visit. I chose Madava. It looked pretty good on the website and it wasn’t too far from home. So we went. We had fun. Food was good and it was an interesting visit but some things were lacking for me. Like, no maple taffy on snow and no trees tapped with an old fashioned spile.
While there, I took quite a few photos. I was too lazy to switch to my telephoto lens but there was no wildlife to be seen so I didn’t miss a thing…
That image with the tube leading into the trees? It took me something like a dozen tries to get the image I wanted and I still had to crop for better composition! I wanted the background trees to be blurry but not too blurry… And I had to be careful to focus in exactly the right spot…
And did you see the one with souricette 2? The sap had just gone through the reverse osmosis thingamajig (not the most traditional part of the process) and was pouring into another container. It was going to the evaporator afterwards. Souricette 2 kept going back to look at that sap pouring…
I will have to take these two kiddies to see a traditional shack in a year or two. I think they will enjoy it even more…
Creative mommy at home to two wonderful little girls, trying to juggle family, sewing, exercise, family, knitting, photography, and did I mention family?
Deux souriceaux 
I love reading your comments! I will try to respond to every single one.