The Maple Syrup Festival was held this past weekend and will continue next weekend. Held in Monterey, Virginia and surrounding towns, sugar shacks are steaming away the sap from maple trees to make their signature maple syrups. The weather has been cold, too cold, but there's hope that everything will turn around with some warm days. It takes two things to happen in a 24 hour period for the sap to flow properly. A freezing night followed by a warm day and it must happen in that order. Sounds simple, right? Well, this is way in the mountains of Virginia, it was 45 degrees in Monterey, Virginia but only 35 at the Rexrode sugar shack, with a biting wind.
The Rexrode home place is in Hightown, Virginia, a town with less than 200 residents. Only 3 miles north of Monterey, all uphill. There were a lot of people coming by but there was no maple syrup to be had. They're working on it. Here are the vats as the sap comes out of pipes and is boiled off. Each vat will produce 9 gallons of maple syrup. A lot of work in a short period, the vats sit above wood fueled fires that burn 24 hours a day.
My daughters family met us there and we posed for various photographs next to one of the old maple trees.
Since we called ahead and we're family, we did score. Hopefully they will be up and running with more soon. I wish them luck because this is the best maple syrup around.
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