Maine Maple Sunday Part II

Joseph got into Maine late on Saturday night. It's great to see him and offer him a friendly place to hang out after dealing with his father's funeral. Alden is a whole different creature since Joseph last saw him and it's really fun to watch the two of them get to know each other all over again. The first activity we did together was Maine Maple Sunday which is a statewide maple syrup festival on the fourth Sunday in March. This is the second time we've taken Alden to this event with Joseph and the first year that Ben and Karen joined us. One more outing and it's officially a tradition - one I think Joseph is excited to start! We went to Goranson's farm first, since we enjoyed it so much last year, but this time they were no longer offering a pancake breakfast. What's the fun of Maine Maple Sunday without pancakes?! We ended up leaving the farm shortly thereafter in search of another one that might provide some breakfast and found it at Uncas Farms. After watching at a Belgian horse nervously paw the ground outside the barn for a few minutes, we moseyed into the store and found a room in the back where the air was thick with hot griddle smoke. A steaming stack of flapjacks was already sitting on the table when we sat down and they kept bringing more over as soon as we'd finish a stack. Best of all, this amazing breakfast was FREE!! All you can eat pancakes with real maple syrup. We felt so fortunate to have stumbled upon it and will certainly be back to Uncas in the future.
This was Alden's first pancake with maple syrup. He was just as excited about the pancakes as we were and probably would have eaten way more, but we decided not to push our luck. He's still recovering from a stomach bug and and a more recent ear infection and puking up a free pancake breakfast is about as uncool as it gets. Alden now wants a maple syrup chaser after everything he eats. We had to pour syrup over his egg and spinach scramble for dinner this evening before he'd even consider it.

Alden "Harambes" the Mini Moo. I wouldn't let him drink it, though and was decried as the evil, overbearing mother at the table.

We bought a bunch of maple syrup after breakfast (mostly, I think, to assuage our own guilt over eating so many pancakes) and then checked out the horse and the calves outside the sugaring facility. Alden was too small to take part in the horse rides, but was content just to watch them happen to other kids this time. Oh, in case you were wondering, yes, the electric fence around the cows was on. Ben personally checked. Twice.

It was a great day, a great way to kick off Joseph's visit, and clearly worthy of a Gilg tradition. Let's see if we can make it happen again next year!