Maple syrup time!

One of the pleasures of living in a place for awhile--one of the things that makes a community a community, and a place a place--is learning its calendar. An annual spring feature of life in Cedar Rapids is the Maple Syrup Festival at Indian Creek Nature Center.

This year's festival came the third weekend of March, instead of the first weekend as it's been in past years. They hoped for a slight improvement in the chances for good weather--and a nice day it was--as well as the opportunity to use this year's syrup because the trees would have more time to produce. There was certainly no problem getting a crowd. I guess the only problem was some of the usual volunteers were not around, having taken advantage of the public schools' spring break to flee the state.

We got there earlyish Saturday morning, and saw all this:



Volunteers making pancakes

Serving pancakes

Live music

Displays on sustainable living

Tapping demonstration

Syrup making demonstration

Gathering crowd lining up

Syrup and syrup-related swag

Walking sticks and willow garden towers for sale, too

Last year's post: "Maple Syrup Time," 1 March 2014

SEE ALSO:
Cindy Hadish, "Photos: Maple Syrup Festival 2015," Homegrown Iowan, 22 March 2015, http://homegrowniowan.com/photos-maple-syrup-festival-2015/