I don’t care what that groundhog saw in Pennsylvania earlier
this month, as a resident of the Hanover-Horton Area, I know that there are
three things that tell me spring is really, truly on the way; The Frosty King
Ice Cream Shop opens, (Feb 11), the Hanover Market starts selling their world-famous
Potato and Macaroni salads, and there are buckets hanging from the maple trees.
In fact, just before this last onslaught of cold weather and
snow, someone in the area already had their milk jugs fastened to their maple
trees.
Gathering the maple sap has been a tradition in America
since before the European explorers come to our shores. The best tree for tapping is the Sugar Maple Don’t
get too excited about tapping that one maple tree in your yard though, as it
takes hours of cooking to change 40 parts of maple sap into 1-part maple syrup!
Luckily, the Hanover Horton Area Historical Society does all
that work for you and you can watch them doing it! We make our Maple Syrup the old-fashioned
way, in an old fashion style Sugar Shack on our property.
Starting sometime around the middle of February, when
daytime temperatures are above 40’, and nighttime temperatures are in the 20’s,
the sap starts to “run”. It is during
this time, that we place “taps” into the trees and hang our buckets.
We spend the next month gathering the buckets of sap, cooking
it down in our Maple Syrup Shack, and bottling it in our Event Center kitchen.
Our annual Maple Syrup Festival is on March 17th
this year. We have a pancake breakfast
in the morning and lots of activities all day long. There will be demonstrations, hands-on-activities,
displays, and storytellers. Love cooking
with maple syrup? We have a maple syrup
cooking contest where you can showcase your favorite recipe. We are also holding a bake sale featuring
several products made from maple syrup.
For a special treat, pick up some of our delicious maple cotton candy
and maple popcorn. If you have never tried those two things before, you will not want to miss this opportunity to sample them!
Our pancake breakfast starts at 7 am. All the events start at 10 am. Hope to see you there!
