AUTUMN IN CONNECTICUT

Autumn leaves are just beginning to turn color in southern Connecticut! This is a time of year that all Nutmeggers love! The most colorful of all, is the sugar maple tree that is a showy brilliant red. This magnificent tree produces the finest and most delicious maple syrup that is sought after by people from all over the world. Whenever our German friends visit, we take them to a sugar shack house so they can buy REAL maple syrup to take home. Walking around the woods through the tunnels of leaves, with the delicious scent of the maple syrup boiling in the sugar shack, is an experience one never forgets.

The Bartlett family came to the U.S in the early 1700's and settled in Guilford, Connecticut. The family has been involved in the forestry industry since then. They take great pride in their land and have turned part of the beautiful historic Bartlett home into a B&B. They also make delicious maple syrup

                            The Bed & Breakfast at The Bartlett Farm | Experience a Slice of History

Making maple syrup is all dependent on the weather. It starts in early February and ends in late March in Connecticut. In order for the trees' sap to run, the temperatures must be at freezing or below at night and the days have to be warm and sunny. When the conditions aren't perfect, the sap won't run.

Early in the season the sap is light amber and as time goes on, to the end of March, it darkens. Both are different in taste and people buy it according to what they like. Once the temperatures rise to above freezing at night, the sap stops running and the season is over.

Sugar houses are open during the season when the sap is being collected in buckets that hang from the trees. Once collected it's boiled down. Teachers take kids on field trips to the sugar houses so they can view the process of turning the nectar of the maples into the syrup they drip on their pancakes and French toast. They can even buy jugs of the warm syrup to take home! Some sugar houses even give lessons of how to make it!
Check out some of them at Visit Connecticut Sugarhouses- Maple Syrup information for Connecticut
I'll be at the farms this weekend and can't wait to experience this truly New England activity!