At the sugar bush

Yesterday, I went out to Fulton's Maple Farm. Fulton's is one of the local sugar bush places, which are popular this time of year when the sap is running. It's a chance to see how maple syrup is made and get out of the city.

I haven't been in ... a few years - by which I mean that I'm pretty sure the last time I went was before my 12-year-old niece was born, so I decided to go this year. 

We got there around noon and went on a sleigh ride through the forest.

It was a little chilly, so we went over to the bonfire to warm up. While we were there, we discovered a woman using coals to carve out the inside of a spoon. We decided to try it ourselves, so we paid our $10 for all three of us to give it a try. They gave us each a piece of wood in the shape of a spoon, and picked hot coals out of the fire.

We used the stick to hold the coal in place and blew on the coal to make it burn.

As the coals disintegrated, we used the stick to carve out the burnt part and then got new coals. The stick came in handy to move the coals to whatever area we were working on.

When we had enough of the bowl carved out, one of the workers used a knife to shave off the top of the spoon, and to get rid of some of the extra wood around the edges.

When I got home, I used coarse sandpaper to smooth out the back and handle, and also to get rid of more of the burnt part of the inside of the bowl.

(After we made the spoon, we had the traditional pancakes, which were good but did not compare to the awesomeness of the spoon.)