Frontier Maple Syrup

Did anyone make their own Maple Syrup over the last few months?
This virtual program follows our attempts at collecting sap from CI's trees and turning it into delicious syrup. See how we did! Will we be ready for a Maple Syrup Festival February-March 2023?
This is a great activity you can do in your own garden to make a unique gift for a loved one, or teach your children about where the food we love comes from.
Here's a quote from 1788 that talks about how easy the process is!
"IMMENSE sums of money are sent every year to the West Indies for sugar. From experience, it has been found to be a wholesome and nutricious article of diet. I do not wish to discourage the use of it --- but to recommend the manufactory of it among ourselves. A species of the American maple contains a genuine sugar, and, if properly prepared, would in every respect equal in all its qualities the sugar obtained from the cane of the West Indies. For sugar, like water, is of one original species only. Its varieties depend upon its being more or less diffused with other matters, all of which may be separated by easy processes. The maple not only affords an excellent sugar, but a pleasant melasses, an agreeable beer, a strong sound wine, and an excellent vinegar.
The following receipts for making each of them have been obtained with some difficulty, from persons who have succeeded in the manufactory of them, and are earnestly recommended to those citizens of the United States who live in the neighbourhood of the sugar maple trees.
To make MAPLE SUGAR.
MAKE an incision in a number of maple trees, at the same time, in the months of February or March, and receive the juice of them in earthen or wooden vessels. Strain this juice (after it is drawn from its sediment) and boil it in a wide-mouthed kettle. Place the kettle directly over the fire, in such a manner that the flame shall not play upon its sides. Skim the liquor while it is boiling. When it is reduced to a thick syrup and cooled, strain it again, and let it settle for two or three days, in which time it will be prepared for granulating. This operation is performed by filling the kettle half full of the syrup, and boiling it a second time. To prevent its rising too suddenly and boiling over, add to it a piece of fresh butter or fat, of the size of a walnut. You may easily determine when it is sufficiently boiled to granulate, by cooling a little of it. It must then be put into bags or baskets, thro' which the water will drain, so as to leave it in a solid form. This sugar, if refined by the usual process, may be made into as good single or double refined loaves, as ever were made from the sugar obtained from the juice of the West India cane."

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Sweet stuff thanks for sharing