Fine-N-Dandy Sugar House

I drove to a sugar house near the St. Lawrence River during the county's Maple Weekend but could not find it. I was on my back home, feeling discouraged, when I saw a sign pointing toward the town of Norwood which advertised a Maple Weekend Open House. Of course I headed that way and, when I got there, saw this wonderful sugar house built of logs:

I remembered that I had been there last year during St. Lawrence County's Maple Weekend but they'd built a new addition for storing maple sap out behind the sugar house since my last visit. Blue tubes transported the sap from the forest to the storage tanks beneath that roof. Mr. Finen, the owner, gave me a tour. The name, "Fine-N-Dandy," is a takeoff on his last name:

Another couple of people came to see the open house so I went inside the sugar house:

I really needed to use the outhouse but would have had to slog through a stretch of deep mud to get there. I decided that I could wait:

Inside the sugar house, there was maple syrup for sale:

And some neighbors, friends of Mr. Finen, who were hanging around and helping where they could:

The evaporator was huge, taking up most of the sugar house:

There was another room off to the side, so I headed toward the doorway:

In that room, a young couple and their two babies were sampling maple syrup, maple covered walnuts and maple cream. The maple cream, a spread with the consistency of peanut butter, was new to me so I tasted it also - and fell in love. I bought a jar of it to give my sister:

And then I went back into the main room where the evaporator was heating sap:

There were several chambers for the sap, and I believe that it progresses from one chamber to the next as it thickens - but I'm not at all sure how that works. I paid for my maple cream and some maple covered walnuts, thanked my host and headed back out to my car: