Adirondack Family Time™

Celebrate the spring season with everything maple  in Thurman, NY! March 22 - 23 and March 29 - 30 Pancakes served at 190 Valley Road, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. High school kids serve hot dogs and more, 151 Chas. Olds Rd.,  11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Check out the schedule above!

There are a variety of places that a person can visit to see maple sap collected, especially this weekend as maple producers join together for the first of two New York State  Maple Producers Association Maple Weekends , March 22-22 and 29-30. My husband and I have had our experiences (and disagreements) with making maple syrup. It is hard work, but each year we can say we did it. We enjoy attending other large-scale  producers so we can continually fine-tune our own backyard maple-making system.    In order for the sap to flow temperatures must rise above freezing during the day and drop below freezing at night. Depending on where you visit t his weekend should not be a problem. It is supposed to be high 30s in certain areas, allowing the sap to thaw and flow throughout the day. This is a great weekend activity for families.  Each producer may have different activities planned such as samplings, face painting, petting zoos and horse-drawn wagon rides. It is best to check with

© Diane Chase, Adirondack Family Time By Diane Chase An Adirondack Full Moon Ski, Hike or Swim?  One Adirondack family activity we always enjoy is taking our cross-country skies and hitting a trail. The kids find it exciting and we get to experience nature in a new way.  You can take your family to enjoy a planned event or find a quiet place and have kids find out what animals are starting to wake up at night! Always bring a headlamp whether you are out on your favorite trail or participating in an organized event! Enjoy!

The Sugarmaker’s Companion includes:  A focus on maple syrup as a healthy, local, sustainably produced alternative to corn syrup and other highly processed artificial sweeteners; Discussions about organic certification, sugarhouse registration, and the new international grading system; Information on marketing to create a profitable business model based on scale, interest, access, and more; Detailed analyses of the economics of buying and selling sap; Information on ways to process and market other tree saps, including birch and walnut; Ways to enhance diversity in the sugarbush and interplant understory crops for value-added products such as ginseng, goldenseal, and mushrooms; and, An economic analysis of utilizing maple trees for syrup or sawtimber production. In addition, readers and sugarmakers will learn plenty of practical, how-to skills, such as: If, and on what scale, syrup production is right for them; How to find trees for tapping; The essentials of sap colle

Since it is the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Horse , below are brief listings of some places to go for a Adirondack winter  sleigh ride or winter horse trail ride. Lake Placid Sleigh Rides  - during the Adirondack winter months enjoy a sleigh ride overlooking the High Peaks from the Lake Placid Club Golf Course, owned by the Crown Plaza. Emerald Spring Ranch , Lake Clear - offers year-round trail rides. Adirondack Sleigh Rides - Lake Clear - Located at Hohmeyer's Lake Clear Lodge , you can take a wonderful sleigh ride through the woods. Run by Country Dream Farms , Plattsburgh

It is a chilly morning in the Adirondacks. Taking my puppy for a walk leads me on all sorts of adventures that I look forward to sharing with my family later in the day.  The woods are so still and even my pup seems to know to be quiet.  The trees are covered in frost and was fortunate to hear the black-capped chickadees simple 3-note whistle. 

The first paintball biathlon of the season was held this weekend at Dewey Mountain in Saranac Lake. To celebrate Sochi, the kids braved cold weather to follow in the heels of Dewey mountain alumni Annelies Cook, Tim Burke and Bill Demong.  Dewey Mountain is known in the Adirondacks as being the place that gave those Olympians there start.