Aqueduct

Around this time of year my mind begins to turn to sweeter things as I watch the weather hoping for warm days and cold nights. My eyes stay alert for the signs: taps on trees, buckets and tubes, posterboards annoucing pancake breakfasts. Our family loves to find a local farm where we can stock up on real maple syrup - we may go through a gallon, maybe a gallon and a half in one year. We weren’t running low just yet, but I couldn’t resist the call of the sugar shack, so we headed out to Ioka Valley Farm in Hancock, MA - on the other side of the mountain from us.

We ordered pancakes, waffles and french toast - all of which were clearly homemade - and we poured plenty of fresh maple syrup on our plates (the baby corn muffins were good too).

The we toured the sugar shack, and met this nice man who tends to the fire and is quite proud of his set up:

We restocked our syrup supply, picked up a jar of maple barbeque sauce and one of maple mustard and were back on the road in no time, off to a northern berkshire blogging convention, under the guise of a kick ass five year old birthday party.

ps - hat tip to Morter Bend’s Lovely Wife for the wine tip - West’s on Rt. 2 in Williamstown. We picked up a great, low priced bottle of a Spanish red - Mano a Mano - that went well with tonight’s beef stew.