The Sugar Shack

A change of plans brought us to Michigan instead of Texas earlier than anticipated. Bill and Anna Lee were in Florida for two months and Anna Lee was in the hospital twice. She wasn't well enough to ride home in their truck so we brought her home in the motorhome. We are so glad she did well during the journey! They are relieved to be able to follow-up with her doctors here in Michigan.

Mel's trip to the Mayo Clinic in Florida in February went well and she is scheduled for a bilateral hip replacement on April 8th in Kalamazoo. So we are staying in Michigan to be with her during and after her surgery. We need to be back in San Antonio by April 21 for our doctors appointments. Sometimes it isn't fun getting old!

It is typical Michigan weather for this time of the year - cold, wet, windy, gray days! Missing the sun in Florida and all the beautiful flowering dogwoods and trees in Georgia. Hopefully, spring will arrive while we are still here.

We are enjoying Dick and Sally's hospitality with the motorhome parked in their yard - a lovely, quiet setting.

The maple tree sap is running now and the Hanover/Horton Historical Society is making and bottling pure maple syrup at Heritage Park. The "sugar shack" runs 24/7 until the season is over with volunteers helping in every way. Families donate trees on their land to be "tapped" - volunteers collect the clear sap - then take it to the sugar shack. The sap is gravity fed into a "evaporation tray" - which dates back to the 1870's! - and boiled - using firewood - until it darkens in color and reaches the correct viscosity. It is then drained off and taken to the kitchen where it is boiled again and strained - to get rid of "sugar sand" - and then bottled for sale. Anyone is welcome to come watch the process and the school children get to participate. What a community endeavor!