Have you ever noticed how some words or expressions sound so much better in French, or another language, than they do in English? If I were to tell you that Reid and I went to a “[1] cabane a sucre” on Sunday, you would say to yourself, “ooh, that sounds like a fun learning experience”. If I said that Reid and I went to a “sugar shack” on Sunday, you would stop paying attention while the B52’s *[2] Love Shack* ran through your head. You might pull yourself back to think how quaint it was that I took Reid to see the tapped maple trees with their buckets hanging down and then the boiling table. I hope you keep reading because we did that and more at [3] Stanley’s Olde Maple Lane Farm on Sunday.

I booked us for the Easter egg hunt at 12:00 but we arrived closer to 11:00 so that we’d have time use the bathroom and look at the animals in the barn. They open at 9:00 and so we could have gone earlier if we were free. The animals in the barn each had signs announcing their names and some had additional information as well. The texts were informative and amusing. The goat’s said:

Hi my name is Barbara Jean. I am a goat. I eat just about anything so watch out. I love to pull hair and I take hats and nibble on coats. This note is hanging above me because I ate the last two they put on my pen.

And the goose’s said:

My name is Goosey-Lucy. I am a very noisy goose. I am always in a bad mood. I love to hiss and I may bite you so watch out for me. I patrol the barnyard in the summer and I am very good at my job. Sometimes, I do go for a walk with the pig and donkey, we are quite the trio.

The signs were only in English, though, a concern in this part of Ontario.

We picked up our tickets for the Easter egg hunt in the tea shop/gift shop. Reid was immediately overcome by hunger and pleaded for maple syrup lollipops and chocolate. I offered a cookie as a pseudo-healthy snack but was glad that she refused because I noticed that the cookies cost $4.50 each. Wow! They were pretty but I can’t imagine how good they’d have to taste for me not to feel short changed when I was done. The maple products in the shop were much more reasonably priced. Pure maple syrup obviously cost more than “table syrup” but the prices were in line with the Byward farmers market.

We turned up at the rendez-vous point 10 minutes early as directed and turned in our tickets. Reid chose a pink plastic bucket for storing her eggs and we boarded a horse drawn sleigh for our trip to the egg patch. The Belgian horses that pulled the sleigh were a lovely light brown rather than the beautiful auburn of Bella and Lady at the Agricultural Museum. (I know a horse-lover would know the proper terms for the colours but I’m more of a dilitente.) Reid climbed onto the bales of straw that sat on the wagon and staked out a prime piece of blanket, just behind the driver. It’s always good to be close enough to ask the names of the horses. Ours were Brent and Brian, or something like that. Reid probably remembers. The horses pulled the sleigh to the sugar bush where a family of rabbits - 2 teen boys and a girl of 10 or so - had been practicing hiding Easter eggs when they discovered that there was a hole in their basket. There were brightly-coloured plastic eggs scattered all over the snow. I liked the way that their scenario didn’t lead to questions about the “real” Easter bunny or why the eggs weren’t actually hidden because, really, they weren’t even pretending to be concealed. The kids put eggs into their buckets and then tipped them into the ones the bunnies carried around. The bunnies weren’t always as careful as they should be and I’m pretty sure Reid picked up the same egg more than once ;+) It was a fun activity for Reid and kids younger but I’m wondering if even next year she’ll realize that those bunnies were dropping the eggs on purpose and if that will bother her or just seem part of the fun. Once the kids started losing interest, the bunnies collected all of the eggs and gave out little treat bags containing a game, car, pencil, eraser and small chocolate egg and we boarded the sleigh once again.

While we were in the bush, I pointed out the buckets hanging from the trees and we lifted a lid to see the sap dripping from the spout into the bucket. Sunday was fairly mild - right around freezing - and the sap was dripping one droplet after another. I asked one of the farmers and he said that a good day would see a steady flow of sap but that the day would need to be 8 degrees Celsius.

We went to see the actual “sugar shack” once the sleigh returned us to the front of the property. The boiling sap was producing lots of steam but the fellow who was minding the fire under the boiling table and the sugaring off process, generally was doing a good job explaining what was happening. There was quite a crowd of people, though, and we couldn’t get close to the syrup making. Reid wanted to leave and I followed her out. It *was* our lunch time after all.

At the dining hall, the line for the buffet seemed intimidating and so I left Reid playing with her treat bag at the table, within my line of sight, and joined the queue. The line moved quickly and we had our waffles, sausages, eggs, beans and ham within 10 minutes. Not before Reid had discovered that the multicoloured egg was, in fact, an eraser rather than a gum drop. Poor kid. At least she had nibbled off a little piece without swallowing immediately.

On the way home, I followed the directions Google Maps had provided and we travelled down Pana Road to Boundary Line. Pana is a secondary road that was snow covered but easy to drive on nonetheless. On the way out, we had followed the big “Stanley’s Old Maple Lane” signs that directed us along Mitch Owens Drive to Yorks Corners road once we left Boundary Line. Yorks Corners Road was cleared of snow but has such great bumps that we made most of the trip at 30 kilometres an hour. Reid was asleep within 3 or 4 minutes and so I took the backroads home to prolong her naptime. I was surprised with my knowledge of the countryside around Ottawa; we were 35 minutes from my house and still I got us home. With the 417 on one side and the Ottawa River on the other, I knew I wouldn’t get too lost but who knew that I wouldn’t have to retrace my route at all!

If you’ve got the time this weekend or even the next couple, Reid and I highly recommend a trip to the local sugar bush.