Get Sticky at Cincinnati Nature Center’s Maple Fest 4949 Tealtown Road, Milford Winter is maple season at Cincinnati Nature Center. Sweet Maple Syrup Days runs through February with a variety of maple sap-themed activities and events. You can go on a guided sap-collecting hike, get a behind-the-scenes look at the tools used to turn sap into syrup, learn how to collect sap and make syrup in your own backyard and even enjoy a date night featuring food, stories and, as Buddy the Elf would say, SYRUP. And the last two weekends in February, you can celebrate all things sweet and sticky with Maple Fest, where you can sample maple beer, collect sap in the sugarbush and enjoy games and activities. Photo: facebook.com/CincyNature

On most nights in February, the temperatures drop below freezing and people begin to grow tired of the cold. But, there’s an upside to the cold: this weather is perfect for making maple syrup, and Great Parks wants to share fun maple activities with the community.

On Feb. 22 and 23 from noon-4 p.m., Great Parks will host Maple Sugar Days at Farbach-Werner Nature Preserve in Colerain Township, where attendees can take a 0.6-mile walk through maple trees, work on crafts with the family and enjoy maple syrup tastings.

Great Parks staff have been waiting for fluctuating temperatures before inserting their spiles — tools used to draw sap from trees into pails — and boiling the sap to make maple syrup. Learn about this process and more with free entry to the park.

For more information about Great Parks’ Maple Sugar Days, visit greatparks.org.

This article appears in Feb 19 – Mar 4, 2025.