Flashback: Proulx Sugarbush and Berry Farm

Proulx Sugarbush and Berry Farm is located 5 minutes east of Orleans. The Sugarbush is open from late February until early April, and there are special Easter activities on Easter weekend.

The Sugar bush hours vary, but is usually open from 9 am until 3 or 4 pm on the weekends and is open during the week if you make a reservation.  There is also a buffet that is open from 9 am to 3 pm on the weekends.  If you'd like to visit the buffet during the week, you need to make a reservation.  Although its not required, Proulx recommends that you make a reservation to visit the Sugar bush on Easter weekend because its the busiest weekend of the year.

Admission to the farm is $5 + tax (kids under 37 months get in for free).  Included in the price of admission is access to the petting farm, nature walking trails, and the play parks and slides.  These activities are located in a different part of the farm than the maple syrup shack but a horse drawn wagon ride is included in the price of admission so you can visit the Sugar bush to watch sap being collected and visit the syrup shack to see how sap is transformed into maple syrup.  A variety of maple syrup products are available for sale at the farm, including maple taffy on snow ($3), pure maple taffy lollipops, maple taffy filled cones, and maple sugar leaves (3 for $2.50).

My boys both loved visiting the play houses and slides.  Despite the freezing cold temperatures we were outside for over two hours playing in the mud and snow. Learn from my mistake: wear snow pants and winter boots!  Until the temperature warms up, rubber boots make for a cold outing.

Last year when we visited the temperature was hovering around 0 and rubber boots and splash pants were a necessity.  The farm and sugar bush are very muddy so be prepared to wash everything your kids wear that day when you get home.

There is little in the way of scheduled activities and the petting farm is pretty sparse at this time of year (a donkey, a goat, a few sheep, and some ducks).  There isn't any entertainment and our three hours visit was occupied by the wagon ride and free play in the play structures and slides.

Unfortunately, the cold temperatures meant that the sap wasn't running.  We saw a lot of frozen sap in the bottom of buckets but the boys weren't able to watch is flow through the types and drip into the buckets, which sounds a bit like watching paint dry but is remarkably exciting for 5 year olds!

If you're planning to eat at the buffet, be forewarned: its expensive and on the weekends the line-ups are long.  We were lucky only to have to wait in line for 30 minutes.  We had friends who visited the weekend before and waited for over an hour.  The buffet is $23 (plus tax) for an adult, $18.60 for children ages 9 to 11, $15.05 for children ages 6-8, $10.40 for children ages 3 to 5, and free for children 3 years and younger.  They're pretty vigilant about counting family members as you arrive and plate sharing is discouraged.

Proulx Sugar Bush is a great family outing but a lot more fun when the temperatures are hovering closer to zero.  They do have a large heated tent so I would suggest packing a picnic lunch instead of visiting the buffet.

Sara is a photographer and mom to a 5-year-old ” firefighter” and 2.5-year-old “monkey”.  You can also find her at her blog, My Points of View.

Found Art

by Sara

It has been a long winter!  You can tell by the dregs of what's left in our arts and crafts cupboard that we're long overdue for some nice weather so we can get outside and play.

Our recent art and craft endeavors have involved 'found' items from our recycling container.  The firefighter used an empty egg  carton and leftover lollipop sticks to create a transport truck.  He used the same sticks, a yogurt container, and tinfoil to create a rocket ship.

For 'found' object arts and crafts projects you really only need glue, tape, scissors, crayons and markers.  As the project evolves, you might get out other supplies from your arts and crafts cupboard like pipe cleaners or stickers.

The 5 year old firefighter created a rocket ship for his brother out of an empty plastic bottle and tinfoil.  We've made bird feeders out of plastic coffee containers and binoculars and periscopes out of empty paper towel rolls.  Empty Kleenex boxes are great for making buildings and vehicles and small plastic containers (applesauce or yogurt) can be added as wheels are compartments.

What items from your recycling box have you used for arts and crafts projects?

Sara is a photographer and mom to a 5-year-old ” firefighter” and 2.5-year-old “monkey”.  You can also find her at her blog, My Points of View.

Painting with Marbles

by Sara Every two weeks I volunteer in my son's Junior Kindergarten classroom and I will admit that it's a great source of inspiration for art and craft projects.

On my most recent visit we used marbles to paint pictures, something even I remember doing in elementary school!

Once you decide how many colours you'd like to use, choose small containers to pour the paint into.  You only need enough paint to cover a marble.

Place a marble into each container and use a plastic spoon to cover the marbles with paint. We used our 'for food' spoons and it was a bit of a disaster: they were too heavy and kept tipping the paint containers over and spilling the contents all over the kitchen table.

We used three different tin trays for this project: one with shallow edges, one with edges that were about 1.5 inches high, and another with edges over 2 inches high.

Whether or not the marble will fly out of the tray (which it did from all 3 of our trays) depends more on the enthusiasm with which the painter rolls the marble around than the depth of the tray.  Although based on the enthusiasm to depth ratio, I'd suggest the 1.5 inch deep tray :)

While we rolled the marble around we talked about the directions you could move the tray in (in a circle, square, back and forth, side to side) as well as the colours we created by mixing different colours of paint.

Even the 2.5 year old monkey got in on the marble rolling action.  Despite giving him the deepest tray he still managed to launch the marble onto the floor the most frequently!

This is definitely a messy activity so I'd suggest a table in the kitchen away from the walls (when the marble launches it tends to splatter) but I think that the colourful paintings we created were well worth the mess!

Sara is a photographer and mom to a 5-year-old ” firefighter” and 2.5-year-old “monkey”.  You can also find her at her blog, My Points of View.