Spring is maple sugaring time and March is Michigan Maple Syrup Month with celebrations and events state-wide celebrating Michigan’s oldest crop: pure Michigan maple syrup!
There’s nothing quite as tasty as a healthy helping of fresh Michigan maple syrup over a hot stack of buttered flapjacks. Equally enticing is the delectable scent of maple wafting from sugarhouses across the state as maple sugaring time arrives. A time when the days get warm enough – just over 40 – to allow the maple sap to begin running out of the carefully placed taps and into the buckets that hang from them.
Once a bucket has been filled, it is collected by a sugarmaker and taken to a sugarhouse and cooked down into maple syrup. It can take as many as 86 gallons of maple sap to make a single gallon of maple syrup!
In celebration of this age-old tradition, the Michigan Maple Syrup Association presents March as Michigan Maple Syrup Month with three Michigan Maple Weekends and a number of festivals around the state.
Michigan Maple Weekends are an opportunity to visit maple syrup farms, learn about the process of maple sugaring, and, best of all, enjoy samples of fresh Michigan maple syrup, maple candy, maple cream, maple sugar, and collect delicious maple-based recipes.
Michigan Maple Weekend
In our area, Michigan Maple Weekend occurs March 19th & 20th and there are two maple makers within a half hour of The English Inn Restaurant & Pub:
Dusty Lane Maple Products
4410 Patrick Rd, Ionia, MI 48846 – 616-642-6642
Open any time in March, 9am to 6pm
Pleasant Meadows Farm
5602 Moyer Road, Charlotte, MI 48813 – 517-543-6126
March 19th & 20th – 12pm to 5pm
For more information on Michigan Maple Weekends, be sure to visit: www.michiganmapleweekend.com
Michigan Maple Festivals
Along with the Michigan Maple Weekends, there are a number of maple festivals planned this spring and, again, two are scheduled to occur within less than half-an hour’s drive of The English Inn Restaurant & Pub in Eaton Rapids:
Fenner Nature Center Maple Syrup Festival
Saturday, March 19, 2016 – 11am to 5pm
Support the Fenner Nature Center and learn about and sample fresh, Michigan maple products! www.mynaturecenter.org
Vermontville Maple Syrup Festival
April 22-24, 2016 – various times, be sure to visit the site below for a detailed schedule
The original Michigan Maple Syrup Festival – www.vermontvillemaplesyrupfestival.org
Southern Michigan Lodging
No matter what brings you to the Lansing area, do yourself the favor of accommodations on the historic Medovue Estate in Eaton Rapids, home to The English Inn Restaurant & Pub! Beyond our historic mansion and 15 acres of beautifully manicured grounds overlooking the Grand River, The English Inn Restaurant & Pub ten guest rooms, lush with old-world beauty and style, as well as a full service, fine dining restaurant and English pub – and all less than half an hour’s drive from the Capital City, Lansing!