Remember how I started telling you the story of my very first ever ‘Year in the Life’ family back in 2017?

Where I followed them around for an entire year, taking photographs of all the fun activities they did?

Well, here’s another instalment of this story.

Mother and son sitting at the bench in Maple Madness at the Cataraqui Conservation Park.

Close up of a boy wearing black winter cap and orange jacket

Dad sitting in the park relaxing in the picnic with family.

Boy wearing yellow winter cap and black jacket playing in snow at the park.

In March, we decided to go to Maple Madness at the Cataraqui Conservation Park. Maple Madness, for the uninitiated, is when the temperatures are just right in late winter/early spring so that the maple trees can be tapped for sap. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but you can learn a LOT if you go for yourself. It happens in early spring (early March until early April).

Long trees and Beautiful nature at Maple Madness at the Cataraqui Conservation Park. Photography by Viara Mileva Quirky love photography in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Best Candid wedding engagement family photographer in Ontario.

The sap is tapped and it fills buckets. Then, it’s made into maple syrup, by boiling out the water.

It’s an indigenous practice, and Maple Madness offers an opportunity to learn all about the history and traditions from indigenous people. There are live demonstrations of how the water is boiled away using a hot stone.

Further down the path, you can see how the colonizers adapted methods and brought in cast iron cauldrons so that the sap could be boiled over a fire and reduced that way.

Making of Maple Syrup by boiling out water at Maple Madness at the Cataraqui Conservation Park. Photography by Viara Mileva Quirky love photography in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Best Candid wedding engagement family photographer in Ontario.

Black and white image of people seeing making of maple syrup

People sitting in the park seeing the making of maple syrup

And you just have to walk a little farther on to see the maple trees, with their buckets of sap attached to each one.

Maple trees attached with the buckets of sap at Maple Madness at the Cataraqui Conservation Park. Photography by Viara Mileva Quirky love photography in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Best Candid wedding engagement family photographer in Ontario.

After seeing how maple syrup is made, you can get a taste of it, on some delicious pancakes made right on site!

Straub and Jacklyn and the kids stopped to have a delicious bite, and I kept snapping photographs.

Now, many folks aren’t thrilled about having eating photographs of themselves.

And I get that.

Except that eating is something we do.

Whether you like it or not, we all eat. It’s true :)

Making of pancakes at Maple Madness at the Cataraqui Conservation Park.

Black and white image of boys eating pancakes.A

People eating pancakes sitting in the park

Man drinking hot coffee with his wife in the park.

People eating pancakes in the Maple Madness park

Husband wife enjoying their picnic at Maple Madness at the Cataraqui Conservation Park.

And the folks who love you and share meals with you (i’m talking about your family, friends, loved one, kids, partner, etc)… they’ve all SEEN YOU EAT.

And guess what? They still love you!

So eating photographs are just documenting a very ordinary and normal activity, to me. There’s nothing to be hidden under the rug here.

Alright, enough about eating haha.

Let’s move onto the bird feeding part of the morning.

Boy wearing orange and black feeding birds at Maple Madness at the Cataraqui Conservation Park. Photography by Viara Mileva Quirky love photography in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Best Candid wedding engagement family photographer in Ontario.

There are plenty of chickadees at Maple Madness and Cataraqui Conservation Area.

You just hold out your hand, and they might land! Especially if you bring a little birdseed. I always have two bags of birdseed in my trunk (among a number of other equally useful items… which is why there is very little space anymore). You can pick up a bag at any pet store, or even at Canadian tire or most grocery stores that have a pet food section!

And if you hold out your hand and wait patiently, the birds will come!