Well, it's been a weekend of exciting ruralite adventures! On Friday we packed up the family, dropped the dog off at Grandma's and drove down to Moose Meadows Farm in Quesnel, BC (www.moosemeadowsfarm.ca) for a tour of their birch syrup sugar shack. One of our goals of rural living is to attempt to utilize and create as many unique and edible products as we can from nature right in our backyard (and, of course, have as much fun as we can doing it) and this spring we are going to try our hand at tapping birch trees -- that's right -- birch trees. "It's the UN-maple!"

As crazy as it sounds, tapping birch trees is not entirely new. In fact , it is practically a full blown industry in Alaska, with over 4000L produced there every year ! As for Canada, ten commercial producers are currently in operation (3 of those 10 being in British Columbia) and interest in the potential pancake alternative is growing. Ted and Heloise-Dixon Warren of Moose Meadows Farm are one of those producers, and we feel priveleged to be in such close proximity to them, as they represent one of the country's premiere authorities on birch tapping. Heloise has actually JUST PUBLISHED Canada's first Birch Syrup Production Manual and was more than eager to share her wisdom in person on her farm, as well as give us multiple taste tests!

It was a great learning experience for us and we left with renewed excitement to gather appropriate equipment and supplies throughout the upcoming weeks. If all goes according to plan, we hope to successfully tap 10-15 trees this year to produce approximately 8L of syrup. We will definitely keep you posted with details on the whole process!