Maple Day

Maple Day is an educational event sponsored by the University of Kentucky's Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, and celebrated across the Commonwealth highlighting the start of the maple syrup season.

Join us at Shaker Village as we celebrate all things maple! With the purchase of an onsite admission ticket at the Welcome Center you'll learn how we tap our trees, collect sap and boil it down on our wood-fired evaporator to make the sweet maple syrup we all love.

Visit the Farm to see our team processing sap from 10:30 a.m. to        2:00 p.m., and learn more about how that wonderful maple syrup gets to your table on our Sap to Syrup tours at 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

We'll also be celebrating Deacon the Farm Dog's fourth birthday. You can join him and his farm friends at the Farm Barn for a special meet-and-greet, and go on a Deacon-themed scavenger hunt.

Don't forget to reserve a spot at our Winter Kitchen breakfast table to get a taste of our maple syrup. For Maple Day you will find maple syrup-infused recipes on our menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Including a maple pecan French toast casserole for breakfast and a salad with baby greens, dried apricots, hazelnuts and a maple bourbon vinaigrette for lunch and dinner.

Looking for more? Check out our Behind the Scenes at the Museum workshop from 2-3:30 p.m. Shaker Village's Curator will fill you in on how Shaker communities relied on the versatile maple tree as a source of both maple sugar and lumber. Maple was used for the bent wooden bands, with their distinctive “swallowtail” lap joints, on almost all Shaker oval boxes. Brethren also favored decorative “bird’s eye” maple for elegant boxes with fine dovetailed joinery. You'll be able to view an assortment of these maple-made boxes up close as well as some other examples from our collection. Purchase your ticket for the workshop here.