WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:02.302 cc >> Paul Rogovitch: Good 00:02.302 --> 00:04.704 afternoon and welcome to History Sandwiched In. 00:04.704 --> 00:07.140 And although it's mid-winter right now, it's not going to be 00:07.140 --> 00:09.709 long before at least the days will be getting warmer and that 00:09.709 --> 00:15.715 means maple sugar time. Today's speaker has come from 00:15.715 --> 00:18.718 the MacKenzie Center up near Poynette. 00:18.718 --> 00:22.922 It's a Department of Natural Resources education center. 00:22.922 --> 00:24.924 It's huge and has so many things. 00:24.924 --> 00:27.494 If you haven't visited it, you really should, you really 00:27.494 --> 00:29.929 should. Especially around maple sugar 00:29.929 --> 00:32.232 time, and she'll tell you when that is. 00:32.232 --> 00:34.901 Our speaker is Ruth Ann Lee. Please, Ruth Ann, 00:34.901 --> 00:37.604 let's all welcome her to History Sandwiched In. 00:37.604 --> 00:41.441 Thank you. [APPLAUSE] 00:41.441 --> 00:46.446 >> Ruth Ann Lee: Thank you. Today I'm honored to be here, 00:46.446 --> 00:49.416 and all of you want to learn a little bit more about maple 00:49.416 --> 00:51.685 sugar. At the MacKenzie Center, 00:51.685 --> 00:55.455 we take our maple syrup pretty seriously, and it's one of 00:55.455 --> 01:00.093 our biggest education programs. But let me tell you a little bit 01:00.093 --> 01:02.929 about the MacKenzie Center if you're not familiar with it. 01:02.929 --> 01:05.632 How many of you have ever been there before? 01:05.632 --> 01:08.501 Beautiful. We're only about 25 miles north 01:08.501 --> 01:12.172 of Madison. Take highway 51 straight up, and 01:12.172 --> 01:15.608 you'll run right into Poynette. Most people associate us with 01:15.608 --> 01:18.278 the state game farm and the pheasants. 01:18.278 --> 01:20.947 That's because that property is our neighbor. 01:20.947 --> 01:24.651 But the MacKenzie Center is an environmental education center, 01:24.651 --> 01:28.388 and we host lots and lots of students every year for outdoor 01:28.388 --> 01:32.359 field trips and hands-on field trips. 01:32.359 --> 01:35.562 We're 250 acres. We have live animals. 01:35.562 --> 01:39.265 You might often hear us in the news with our bobcats or our 01:39.265 --> 01:43.370 wolves or our mountain lions. We have a nice live wildlife 01:43.370 --> 01:45.905 exhibit. We have themed museums, hiking 01:45.905 --> 01:49.642 trails, different habitats on property for people to explore 01:49.642 --> 01:53.513 and the students to explore. A pond. 01:53.513 --> 01:56.750 An arboretum. We have a hundred different 01:56.750 --> 02:00.153 species of trees that are all GPS located that you can go out 02:00.153 --> 02:03.957 and learn to identify. Our sugar bush, very important, 02:03.957 --> 02:07.994 picnic areas, a nice big lodge and dormitories. 02:07.994 --> 02:14.467 We actually can sleep 82 people on any given night. 02:14.467 --> 02:19.906 In 2010 we reached just over 7600 kids, through a variety of 02:19.906 --> 02:24.544 programming. They come for day field trips 02:24.544 --> 02:28.515 with their teachers. We may not see them. 02:28.515 --> 02:31.518 Sometimes they're self-guided, other times they have a lot of 02:31.518 --> 02:34.988 staff or volunteer help. They come for our maple program 02:34.988 --> 02:39.092 just in the month of March. We have day camp programs. 02:39.092 --> 02:42.195 We have overnight programs, those are those 82 beds where 02:42.195 --> 02:44.998 they spend the night with us, and the kids spend the night 02:44.998 --> 02:47.567 with their teachers and chaperones and then they kind of 02:47.567 --> 02:50.303 wiggle in those traditional campfire and night hikes into 02:50.303 --> 02:54.808 their field trips. And then we do have a variety of 02:54.808 --> 02:58.712 summer camp programming as well. But today I'm going to focus on 02:58.712 --> 03:02.115 maple syrup. Out of that 7600 kids, about 03:02.115 --> 03:07.554 1500 of them were just for maple, in the month of March. 03:07.554 --> 03:10.290 So it's a pretty intense program for us. 03:10.290 --> 03:13.093 This is a picture of our sugar bush. 03:13.093 --> 03:16.563 Harley MacKenzie, for whom the center is named after, loved 03:16.563 --> 03:19.265 trees, particularly the sugar maple. 03:19.265 --> 03:22.869 And so we're blessed with his love all these years later with 03:22.869 --> 03:27.907 many sugar maple trees to tap. The students arrive. 03:27.907 --> 03:32.345 They're greeted by volunteers. They get into their small 03:32.345 --> 03:36.282 groups, and we really do like them in small groups because 03:36.282 --> 03:40.220 it's hands-on for these kids. This is not lecture for them. 03:40.220 --> 03:44.557 This is hands-on, outside. They're learning all about, a 03:44.557 --> 03:48.395 little bit about MacKenzie but they're also learning about why 03:48.395 --> 03:53.533 trees are important, why the forest is important, products 03:53.533 --> 03:57.871 like fire wood and lumber and that trees give us oxygen, that 03:57.871 --> 04:01.708 trees can actually give us food, and usually they'll catch on to 04:01.708 --> 04:05.578 nuts and berries and things like that and apples and oranges. 04:05.578 --> 04:09.215 And we try to get them to think about the sap that's also 04:09.215 --> 04:13.720 flowing in those trees. What's neat about this is we 04:13.720 --> 04:17.424 talk about the signs of spring. And Paul mentioned earlier in 04:17.424 --> 04:20.560 the introduction that we're waiting for our days to get 04:20.560 --> 04:23.163 warmer. But for maple syrup to be 04:23.163 --> 04:26.700 successful we need warm days and very cold nights. 04:26.700 --> 04:30.103 So we need to get the kids to think about that. 04:30.103 --> 04:33.807 Springtime, what does that mean? Puddles are melting but they 04:33.807 --> 04:38.745 freeze again over night. We get them to think about, I'll 04:38.745 --> 04:43.383 go back just a second, about tree identification. 04:43.383 --> 04:47.220 They're at the MacKenzie Center and we're going to tap sugar 04:47.220 --> 04:50.423 maple trees, well most often they'll know the difference 04:50.423 --> 04:53.626 between a maple and an oak, but in March the leaves aren't on 04:53.626 --> 04:56.429 the trees. So we need to go a step further 04:56.429 --> 04:58.998 and do a little winter identification with them. 04:58.998 --> 05:01.468 And we'll talk about the branches on the trees. 05:01.468 --> 05:05.071 Whether they have alternate or opposite branching. 05:05.071 --> 05:07.874 And a sugar maple tree in particular, does anybody know 05:07.874 --> 05:12.912 what kind of branching they might have? 05:12.912 --> 05:15.749 Nobody? Okay. 05:15.749 --> 05:17.584 Opposite. So if you think my body is the 05:17.584 --> 05:20.653 trunk and my arms as branches, the branches are opposite from 05:20.653 --> 05:23.089 each other. Versus alternate where you might 05:23.089 --> 05:25.725 be like this. So we get the kids to do a 05:25.725 --> 05:29.029 little dance out in the sugar bush. 05:29.029 --> 05:32.732 This is a food factory. We like to stress that trees are 05:32.732 --> 05:35.468 food. They make their own food. 05:35.468 --> 05:41.808 And we'll get them to experience and kind of investigate what 05:41.808 --> 05:45.378 that means. What the structure of the tree 05:45.378 --> 05:48.181 is. There's a wood cookie here at 05:48.181 --> 05:51.017 the bottom of the tree. It's simply a cross section of a 05:51.017 --> 05:53.787 tree. So we'll talk about the xylem 05:53.787 --> 05:56.523 and the phloem, those veins in the trees that are carrying the 05:56.523 --> 05:59.926 sap from the roots all the way up to the buds much like the 05:59.926 --> 06:02.896 veins in your body carrying your blood. 06:02.896 --> 06:06.666 We talk about how the bark protects the tree. 06:06.666 --> 06:10.136 And then they'll usually get to the fact that there's going to 06:10.136 --> 06:14.007 be leaves on that tree. And leaves are usually green. 06:14.007 --> 06:18.244 And green leaves make food because of the chlorophyll and 06:18.244 --> 06:21.781 the process of photosynthesis. And so the students will 06:21.781 --> 06:24.884 investigate that a little bit. And this is really important to 06:24.884 --> 06:29.155 us because we not only want them to learn about maple sugar and 06:29.155 --> 06:35.528 maple sap but we also need them to know how it was created. 06:35.528 --> 06:39.899 So they're experiencing it. We've got these little pieces 06:39.899 --> 06:43.236 that fit inside the food factory that represent the sunlight and 06:43.236 --> 06:50.176 the chlorophyll needs. The water, carbon dioxide, all 06:50.176 --> 06:53.279 those things that the tree needs. 06:53.279 --> 06:55.849 Oops, I'm going a little fast here. 06:55.849 --> 06:58.551 The kids will experience then that through that process of 06:58.551 --> 07:01.388 photosynthesis the tree is making sugar and water and 07:01.388 --> 07:04.758 oxygen. And it's that sugar that they're 07:04.758 --> 07:08.728 going to learn about how to collect. 07:08.728 --> 07:11.231 So you collect it. You can't just cut the tree 07:11.231 --> 07:13.967 down. We need to create some sort of 07:13.967 --> 07:17.804 method to harvest the sap in that tree. 07:17.804 --> 07:21.741 In this case the students here are making what's called a 07:21.741 --> 07:25.311 spile. And they're made from small 07:25.311 --> 07:28.348 elderberry branches that have a very soft pith or center core. 07:28.348 --> 07:32.118 And they'll actually clean them out and make their own little 07:32.118 --> 07:36.356 wooden spile, much like people may have done a hundred years 07:36.356 --> 07:41.461 ago. So hands-on again. 07:41.461 --> 07:44.764 Real successful. They love doing this. 07:44.764 --> 07:48.368 We'll share with them a story or a legend, how maple sap may or 07:48.368 --> 07:52.706 may not have been discovered. And there's a story about a 07:52.706 --> 07:56.509 Native American chief who, at the end of his day of hunting 07:56.509 --> 07:59.879 and gathering, came home and put his hatchet, just kind of hit it 07:59.879 --> 08:02.816 right in the tree. Went about his business. 08:02.816 --> 08:05.618 Rested for the evening. When he got up in the morning, 08:05.618 --> 08:08.555 he took his hatchet and we went back out and he was hunting and 08:08.555 --> 08:11.658 gathering for his family. While it was a nice warm march 08:11.658 --> 08:15.829 day where it was above freezing during the day, and his wife had 08:15.829 --> 08:19.666 left all her vessels in her basket at the base of that tree 08:19.666 --> 08:23.603 and that tree gave them water and filled the baskets. 08:23.603 --> 08:27.540 Well she thought it was a really nice option to use the water in 08:27.540 --> 08:30.510 those baskets instead of traveling all the way down to 08:30.510 --> 08:34.114 the crick to gather water to make her meal. 08:34.114 --> 08:37.283 And so she cooked their venison and their meat in that water 08:37.283 --> 08:40.186 that the tree gave them that day. 08:40.186 --> 08:43.556 And they realized how sweet and how delicious it was. 08:43.556 --> 08:47.060 And so they continued to try to collect it from the trees, the 08:47.060 --> 08:50.463 water from the trees. Had they known it was sugar? 08:50.463 --> 08:53.199 I don't know. Is the story true? 08:53.199 --> 08:55.735 I don't know either. We call it a legend. 08:55.735 --> 08:58.571 But it's one idea of how to do it. 08:58.571 --> 09:02.342 But again, no hatchets for the children. 09:02.342 --> 09:06.680 They're making spiles to collect it. 09:06.680 --> 09:10.817 They're cleaning out. Then we've got to find a tree. 09:10.817 --> 09:14.587 We've already told them about opposite branching. 09:14.587 --> 09:18.191 We told them about how maple trees have brown bark and brown 09:18.191 --> 09:21.494 buds this time of year. And they're up in our sugar 09:21.494 --> 09:23.963 bush. And they're not allowed, if 09:23.963 --> 09:26.332 you'll notice to the left there's a tree that's already 09:26.332 --> 09:29.302 wrapped with a ribbon, sometimes we put ribbons around a pine 09:29.302 --> 09:33.573 tree just to throw them off, but they've got to find their tree 09:33.573 --> 09:40.747 because we're going to actually let the kids tap the tree. 09:40.747 --> 09:43.783 So no hatchets. We do use a brace and a bit, and 09:43.783 --> 09:48.655 we let the children all take turns with the drill. 09:55.528 --> 09:59.733 No wooden spiles today but we would do a metal spile with a 09:59.733 --> 10:02.502 hook. And so our teacher here is 10:02.502 --> 10:06.639 actually gently tapping it in. We talk to the kids about where 10:06.639 --> 10:11.411 to tap it on the tree, whether it's way down low or way up high 10:11.411 --> 10:15.181 or usually about three or four feet off the ground is 10:15.181 --> 10:18.351 appropriate. Makes it easy to collect. 10:18.351 --> 10:21.688 Will the tree give us sap way up high? 10:21.688 --> 10:24.657 Probably. But when that bucket is super 10:24.657 --> 10:27.494 full it's going to be really hard to lift it off without 10:27.494 --> 10:32.499 spilling. On a really nice warm day, the 10:32.499 --> 10:38.071 tree will start dripping before we even have the bucket hung. 10:38.071 --> 10:41.307 And it's always interesting to get a sample. 10:41.307 --> 10:44.344 Get it on your finger and taste what it's like. 10:44.344 --> 10:47.514 And most kids are expecting syrup. 10:47.514 --> 10:50.116 It's quite interesting. You ask them what does it taste 10:50.116 --> 10:53.053 like and they'll say water. Well, what's interesting about 10:53.053 --> 10:58.058 maple sap is on a good tree only about 3% to 5% of that sap is 10:58.058 --> 11:02.062 going to be sugar, the rest is all water. 11:02.062 --> 11:05.265 By the time you put it on your pancakes it's usually about 66% 11:05.265 --> 11:08.768 sugar. So there's a big deference 11:08.768 --> 11:11.504 between what comes out of the tree as sap and what you put on 11:11.504 --> 11:18.078 your pancakes for syrup. Here's some girls checking out 11:18.078 --> 11:23.016 how much is in the buckets. On any given season we will 11:23.016 --> 11:27.354 probably tap well over a hundred trees, and 90% of those trees 11:27.354 --> 11:30.790 were tapped in small groups by students. 11:30.790 --> 11:33.860 There's only a few that the volunteers are tapping without a 11:33.860 --> 11:39.499 group of students. So what we also do with our 11:39.499 --> 11:42.902 maple program once they've had all this hands-on, they go visit 11:42.902 --> 11:46.473 our Che-po-ta-kay. And the Che-po-ta-kay is a home, 11:46.473 --> 11:48.775 a Native American home. And in this case we have a 11:48.775 --> 11:53.246 replica. And it's covered in a tarp but 11:53.246 --> 11:57.283 inside is something special. This is where our maple program 11:57.283 --> 12:01.021 reaches a different level. These students are learning 12:01.021 --> 12:04.691 about a little bit of history. How Native Americans would 12:04.691 --> 12:07.994 travel from their winter home to their springtime home and why 12:07.994 --> 12:11.031 they would do that. Now Native Americans weren't 12:11.031 --> 12:13.700 making syrup. They had no way to gauge 12:13.700 --> 12:16.670 percentages in their sap and in their syrup, they were making 12:16.670 --> 12:21.141 sugar. Inside the house we decorate it 12:21.141 --> 12:28.715 with hides and pelts and different artifacts. 12:28.715 --> 12:33.987 There's an interpreter in here. This particular educator is 12:33.987 --> 12:38.558 sharing his knowledge with the students about how grandmother 12:38.558 --> 12:42.495 ran the house. It wasn't mom or dad, it would 12:42.495 --> 12:45.498 have been grandma. And the jobs you may or may not 12:45.498 --> 12:51.404 have had as a young child at this particular time in history. 12:51.404 --> 12:54.474 They'll move on to a different station. 12:54.474 --> 12:57.410 We call this our hollow log station. 12:57.410 --> 13:01.414 How did Native Americans get their sap from 3% from the tree 13:01.414 --> 13:09.389 into sugar which is beyond 66%? Well, they got very creative and 13:09.389 --> 13:14.561 they'd hollow out logs and they would have different vessels 13:14.561 --> 13:19.099 such as these. They'd take hot rocks that 13:19.099 --> 13:23.536 they'd heat up in a campfire, and this hollow log in our 13:23.536 --> 13:27.607 demonstration purposes is filled with water. 13:27.607 --> 13:30.677 History would tell us it would be filled with sap. 13:30.677 --> 13:35.415 You drop those hot rocks into that sap and you're evaporating. 13:35.415 --> 13:38.718 What is all that steam? Well it's water. 13:38.718 --> 13:43.556 So it's concentrating the sap through evaporation. 13:43.556 --> 13:49.229 Another station we take the students to is early pioneers. 13:49.229 --> 13:53.099 How did the pioneers, they learned a lot from the Native 13:53.099 --> 13:56.436 Americans. They could barter and trade for 13:56.436 --> 14:00.473 syrup and for sap and for sugar. But they brought tools with 14:00.473 --> 14:03.343 them, tools the Native Americans didn't have. 14:03.343 --> 14:06.880 They had iron. So we have our iron kettles. 14:06.880 --> 14:10.817 We talk about tapping the trees and bringing different tools 14:10.817 --> 14:13.853 with you. They may have modified the spile 14:13.853 --> 14:17.223 a little bit. In this case the spile is quite 14:17.223 --> 14:20.393 long, it's probably a good 12 to 18 inches compared to that 14:20.393 --> 14:23.530 little metal one we tapped in the tree. 14:23.530 --> 14:26.566 While they didn't necessarily have a method to hang a bucket 14:26.566 --> 14:29.736 from the spile, they'd set it at the base of the tree so you 14:29.736 --> 14:32.906 needed a longer spile so you that you didn't waste any of 14:32.906 --> 14:36.209 those drops, that it landed right in the bucket that you 14:36.209 --> 14:41.281 placed there. So we're talking about 14:41.281 --> 14:44.317 concentrating that sap, again through evaporation. 14:44.317 --> 14:47.787 A hot fire is cooking that sap. You constantly needed to use 14:47.787 --> 14:51.191 that paddle to stir it up so that it wouldn't scorch on the 14:51.191 --> 14:55.462 bottom of those iron kettles. It would get a little darker, 14:55.462 --> 14:58.765 you'd move it to the next kettle, next kettle until you 14:58.765 --> 15:02.435 got a little bit less and a little bit less. 15:02.435 --> 15:06.106 Kids want to do this at home. So sometimes we'll show them an 15:06.106 --> 15:10.210 outdoor cooker. I don't know if any of you know 15:10.210 --> 15:14.414 people that produce maple syrup at home but traditionally you 15:14.414 --> 15:17.384 don't do the whole process from beginning to end in your 15:17.384 --> 15:20.153 kitchen. You think about boiling water 15:20.153 --> 15:23.256 for noodles and things like that and all the condensation and the 15:23.256 --> 15:26.359 steam that's in your kitchen. Now can you imagine for doing 15:26.359 --> 15:30.897 that for 10-12 hours straight. It produces a lot of humidity in 15:30.897 --> 15:33.733 your home, and if you have wallpaper and things like that 15:33.733 --> 15:37.103 it's not usually a good idea. You can start the process 15:37.103 --> 15:41.041 outside. This is a simple little brick 15:41.041 --> 15:46.246 outdoor cooker with a flat pan on the fireplace. 15:46.246 --> 15:49.182 We're very fortunate at MacKenzie because we have 15:49.182 --> 15:51.951 buildings dedicated just for our maple syrup program. 15:51.951 --> 15:55.422 These are students that are near our cook shack. 15:55.422 --> 15:58.525 And here they're looking at the a demonstration of all the many 15:58.525 --> 16:02.028 different kinds of spiles. Some of it is technology 16:02.028 --> 16:05.498 improving from wooden to metal to plastic. 16:05.498 --> 16:09.903 Sometimes it's simply just your preference. 16:09.903 --> 16:12.806 All the Wisconsin maple products. 16:12.806 --> 16:17.177 We have lots of local maple products here in Wisconsin. 16:17.177 --> 16:20.780 A weather station just reaffirming to the students that 16:20.780 --> 16:24.484 you can't do this any other time of year. 16:24.484 --> 16:27.320 You need to remind them you need springtime. 16:27.320 --> 16:31.257 You need warm spring days but you also need those cold spring 16:31.257 --> 16:34.227 nights. And a thermograph that measures 16:34.227 --> 16:38.264 the temperatures helps us monitor some of those things. 16:38.264 --> 16:42.802 In our cook shack we have a special back room that holds our 16:42.802 --> 16:45.805 sap tank. There's a hundred gallon tank in 16:45.805 --> 16:48.475 there. So all the sap that's collected 16:48.475 --> 16:51.244 from the trees that the students just tapped. 16:51.244 --> 16:53.880 Some of it gets refrigerated, some of it goes directly into 16:53.880 --> 16:59.285 that silver sap tank. Here they're looking at a 16:59.285 --> 17:03.456 demonstration of milk jugs. To put it into perspective on 17:03.456 --> 17:08.094 how much time it takes in perspective, if our maple tree 17:08.094 --> 17:14.167 has 5% sugar, it would take us 17 gallons of sap to make one 17:14.167 --> 17:17.303 gallon of syrup. So we would have to collect that 17:17.303 --> 17:20.340 many milk jugs full of sap just to get on milk jug of pancake 17:20.340 --> 17:25.445 syrup. At 4% it's 21 and at 3% it's 28. 17:25.445 --> 17:30.483 And trees on average are closer to three than they are to five 17:30.483 --> 17:33.853 so we are collecting a lot of sap to make just a little bit of 17:33.853 --> 17:40.460 syrup, and that's often why pure maple syrup is more expensive. 17:40.460 --> 17:45.231 It's very time consuming to produce. 17:45.231 --> 17:48.435 So this displays on the outside of our cook shack for our 17:48.435 --> 17:51.404 students. Then they get to enter the 17:51.404 --> 17:54.140 shack. Here we have a volunteer 17:54.140 --> 17:56.943 educator explaining what's going on in this building in this part 17:56.943 --> 18:00.046 of the process. Our technology is from the Civil 18:00.046 --> 18:03.383 War era. Here we have an arch stove with 18:03.383 --> 18:07.053 a flat pan. And the pan is actually the top 18:07.053 --> 18:09.956 of the stove. If you were to remove that pan, 18:09.956 --> 18:13.860 you'd see the flames. Very hot fire. 18:13.860 --> 18:18.998 In this case that sap tank I showed you in a previous slide 18:18.998 --> 18:23.269 has a little tube that goes through the wall because it is 18:23.269 --> 18:27.273 constantly draining into this flat pan so that there's always 18:27.273 --> 18:30.577 about an inch to an inch and a half in that pan. 18:30.577 --> 18:34.514 And if you were to look at, it's at a little roaring boil. 18:34.514 --> 18:38.752 All these little bubbles. And they stir it up, they just 18:38.752 --> 18:42.856 don't want it to scorch. It takes them probably 10 to 12 18:42.856 --> 18:47.260 hours to cook down that hundred gallon tank full of sap. 18:47.260 --> 18:50.663 So we have volunteers that arrive quite early in the 18:50.663 --> 18:54.334 morning. On a cold day this is a favorite 18:54.334 --> 19:02.542 spot for the kids. We have some very interesting 19:02.542 --> 19:06.680 engineers in our volunteer crew. That contraption that's on the 19:06.680 --> 19:10.250 top of the flat pan evaporator you'll see that this is the tube 19:10.250 --> 19:13.820 that comes out, the sap tank is on the opposite side of the 19:13.820 --> 19:17.057 wall. What they're trying to do is 19:17.057 --> 19:20.427 preheat the sap a little bit through those coils before it 19:20.427 --> 19:24.164 enters right in. And I think it took off an hour 19:24.164 --> 19:28.768 or two of production time at the end of the day. 19:28.768 --> 19:32.339 Some students in the sugar house. 19:32.339 --> 19:35.875 Inside our finishing house we like to share with them all the 19:35.875 --> 19:40.246 different maple products. We'll quiz them. 19:40.246 --> 19:43.416 We'll pick up this bottle of Aunt Jemima, and we'll ask one 19:43.416 --> 19:46.052 of the students to read the back and read the ingredients. 19:46.052 --> 19:49.356 What do you think is in this particular pancake syrup? 19:49.356 --> 19:52.325 >> Corn syrup. >> Corn syrup. 19:52.325 --> 19:55.729 Nowhere in the ingredients list will it say maple. 19:55.729 --> 19:59.366 And for a product to have pure maple syrup in it, it has to say 19:59.366 --> 20:05.905 it on the front of the label. We use a refractometer and this 20:05.905 --> 20:09.342 is a diagram of it. It's a small tool that you put a 20:09.342 --> 20:13.313 drop of sap on, and you measure how the light reflects through 20:13.313 --> 20:17.083 that sap and it will tell you how much sugar is in it. 20:17.083 --> 20:21.154 So that flat pan, they're cooking and they're cooking and 20:21.154 --> 20:24.190 they're cooking all day, they take it off that hot fire at 20:24.190 --> 20:29.195 about 64%. Sometimes it moves really quick 20:29.195 --> 20:32.132 on them. Then they'll take it inside our 20:32.132 --> 20:34.768 finishing house where on a stove, on a gas stove, they'll 20:34.768 --> 20:38.972 get it just to the very end. And their goal is 66% bricks or 20:38.972 --> 20:44.077 66% sugar. If you go past it, you're going 20:44.077 --> 20:51.384 to get like a maple candy or maple actually crumb sugar. 20:51.384 --> 20:54.320 It almost looks like brown sugar. 20:54.320 --> 20:57.290 So the volunteers are constantly measuring where it is in the 20:57.290 --> 21:01.194 process. It gets filtered several 21:01.194 --> 21:05.398 different times, and then it gets jarred and bundled up. 21:05.398 --> 21:10.003 Cooled and labeled. And the students then do enjoy a 21:10.003 --> 21:13.173 campfire outside where they kind of have a review. 21:13.173 --> 21:17.844 They get to sample some pure maple syrup, see what they've 21:17.844 --> 21:22.015 learned on their field trip. We've got some neat props. 21:22.015 --> 21:25.485 This particular wood cookie that the volunteer has here has been 21:25.485 --> 21:28.722 a tree that's been tapped before. 21:28.722 --> 21:32.559 So they're showing some scars on that particular tree and 21:32.559 --> 21:36.529 stressing to them that the tree had healed much like a scab on 21:36.529 --> 21:41.568 your body, the tree healed and continued to grow. 21:41.568 --> 21:45.739 We challenge them a little bit, talking again about pioneer life 21:45.739 --> 21:49.943 and collecting and the tools you may have had to do that and how 21:49.943 --> 21:54.647 much work and how time consuming and labor intensive this process 21:54.647 --> 21:57.717 can be. But it got you outside and 21:57.717 --> 22:01.054 everybody loved it. And then, of course, the sample. 22:01.054 --> 22:04.591 And I have samples to share with you today as well. 22:04.591 --> 22:08.995 Now what make this is program successful at MacKenzie is last 22:08.995 --> 22:13.767 year we had over 68 volunteers that served over 3,000 hours in 22:13.767 --> 22:18.805 the month of March. So it reached 1500 students, 22:18.805 --> 22:22.509 they collected just over 1200 gallons of sap and produced 22:22.509 --> 22:27.414 just over 40 gallons of syrup. It's a lot of time and a lot of 22:27.414 --> 22:31.017 effort on them, but our volunteers often tell us that 22:31.017 --> 22:33.553 it's addicting. That once they get settled, once 22:33.553 --> 22:36.589 they find their niche in the program, they wait for it every 22:36.589 --> 22:40.794 year. So we're pretty excited about 22:40.794 --> 22:44.597 it. We're already in the midst of 22:44.597 --> 22:47.634 planning for this spring. Our teachers are gearing up. 22:47.634 --> 22:50.070 They plan all their field trips next week. 22:50.070 --> 22:52.272 So hopefully we'll have our spring field trip calendar 22:52.272 --> 22:55.775 filled. And we do quite well. 22:55.775 --> 22:58.044 We have a lot of fun with it. It does mean that spring is 22:58.044 --> 23:01.481 coming. All right. 23:01.481 --> 23:04.651 Samples, would you like to enjoy some samples or take some 23:04.651 --> 23:09.556 questions? [APPLAUSE]