VIGO COUNTY, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — After not being able to operate last year, Vigo County Parks are again using Prairie Creek Park to produce maple syrup.
If you drive into the park this time of year, you’ll see buckets and tubes stemming from the trees.
Vigo County Parks Superintendent Adam Grossman says the operation has been going on for decades.
“Our department has been doing it since the 70s”, Grossman said. “We’ve come through a lot of different ways that we do it. We used to tap almost 2000 trees, 2000 taps. Right now, we’re running about 300 taps, which is really good for us.”
Visitors of Prairie Creek Park really enjoy the buckets that hang off the maple trees as they can open them and look at the sap that has been collected that day.
However, the star of the show, is the tubes that take the sap directly from the tree, right into production.
“Our vacuum system pumps it up to our holding tank”, Grossman said. “Then if we get, usually, around 300 or 400 or more, we’ll start up the evaporator and start boiling. It runs 40 to 1. You have to have 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, so there is a lot of sap involved. Today we’re doing over 500 gallons, and we’ll not get 500 gallons of syrup, nowhere near that.”
Natural Resource Programmer Heather Cosme Milian says they are hoping production continues to be strong, so they can show off their product to local residents soon.
“Coming up next weekend is our annual pancake breakfast”, Cosme Milian said. “It is going to be over at Fowler Park this year. Tickets are just $8 per person, kids 2 and under are free. You can come on out, get your pancake breakfast, pancakes, sausage and some Prairie Creek Maple Syrup.”
The pancake breakfast will be February 8th at Fowler Park.
If you don’t have the chance that day, you can also purchase the syrup directly at the Sugar Shack, located inside the park.
