Last Sunday, we drove up to Maberley to visit Bill & Jeannette Avery, a couple who spent last year on exchange in Australia. We met them at a party in Bateman's Bay and maintained contact. The Averys live about 95km fom Kingston and we arranged the visit a few weeks ago. Bill took us out to brunch at Wheeler's Maple Syrup Farm. This family run establishment is world famous and apparantly becomes very busy as March progresses and the maple syrup really starts to flow. We feasted on home made pancakes, maple sausages and lashings of maple syrup before exploring the farm. The Wheeler family have established a private museum on their property and here we looked at the old maple syrup making tools and learnt about how the local Aboriginal people tapped the syrup 600 years ago.
Emily and the boys enjoyed a romp in the playgound area and despite the mud, (melting snow is really VERY messy) braved the flying fox. We got to see maple trees up close with tubes attached to draw out the sap. The Wheelers make the syrup on their property and there are several large vats to boil down the sap. Apparantly it takes 40 litres of sap to make 1 litre of syrup.
The day was sunny and we even saw deer with their babies as the Averys took us on a tour of the local area. Their property backs onto a lake and they have their own cottage. This will be great in summer when we intend to return for another visit.
All in all, it was a pretty uniquely Canadian experience. We all love maple syrup!
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