Asbury Woods Maple Festival slated for March 4 & 5

ERIE – Asbury Woods Annual Maple Festival will take place on Saturday, March 4 and Sunday, March 5 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Andrew J. Conner Nature Center at Asbury Woods. The Maple Festival is two days of interactive tours, demonstrations, and all things maple syrup! The Maple Festival this year is sponsored by Widget Financial.

The Asbury Woods Maple Festival annually attracts more than 600 visitors to explore the history of maple production, to engage in family activities and to browse the maple products for purchase.

Asbury Woods Maple Festival program details: • Maple Tapping Tour:

Thirty-minute tour includes an introduction to maple syrup history, tapping demonstration, and explanation of the sugaring process.

• Interactive Stations:

Placed throughout the Nature Center. Try to identify a maple tree, see the evaporation process in action and learn about photosynthesis.

• Kids Activities:

Enjoy some face painting, try your hand at our maple bean bag toss, or explore our toy evaporator!

• Lectures: A morning lecture at 11 am with Laura Dengler, owner of How Sweet It Is, talking about “Cooking with Maple,” and an afternoon lecture at 1 pm with Chris Dolanc, professor in the Biology department at Mercyhurst University, talking about “Trouble for Maples.”

• Commemorative Coaster:

New this year we are introducing a chance for you to take home your own piece of Asbury Woods with an original coaster made from a tree on our property and branded with our Maple Festival Design.

• Vendor Stations:

Browse local hand-made items and taste samples from our maple vendors, How Sweet It Is, Casbohm Maple and Honey, and Northwestern High School- Wildcat Honey, along with the Asbury Woods Squeaky Frog gift shop.

Sugar maple trees are a natural resource found only in our region of the world, and Asbury Woods proudly partakes in this tradition each year by tapping trees then collecting and boiling sap into pure maple syrup! “Our Maple Festival gives the public an opportunity to see the maple syrup process first-hand, by running our sugar shack when sap is flowing people get to see and smell the magic of maple. We've included many interactive stations located inside our Nature Center so people can visit the stations they want at their own pace, along with two lectures, and kids activities. This year