sugaring

[Ed Thayer]

Mitch, that is a nice set up. I wish I had a sugar bush close enough to the sugar house to use only the horses. Your team must grunt a little when that tank is full? Good looking horses too. Hard to imagine no snow in Maine at the end of February.

Mark, The rig is a 30″ x 8′. Forced draft with insulated front. The head tank holds about 500 gallons and is sized big enough for the largest runs. Sometimes I have to store sap in the truck when things get full in the sugar house.

We had about 2″ of snow on Friday night and then the sap ran in the lower bush real well. Kind of surprised me but after this winter nothing should surprise me.

We finished boiling this afternoon and canned just over 10 gallons of real nice light syrup. I hope the weather will moderate and keep things cool for a few weeks.

A couple from the city stopped in today and spent an hour talking, asking questions and visiting. I did not know them but was reminded how steam rising from a sugarhouse is an open invitation to stop and talk. Some of my neighbors whom I am very friendly with never stop at the house until sugaring time. I was glad to visit and was a little taken back when the lady from Concord asked why the sap was so “watery”. I needed to explain that syrup did not come from the tree in that thick, sweet consistency and that it had to be boiled down. She looked at me like I was crazy and had a hard time wrapping her head around that. Our discussion ended with draft horses after she had seen the sleds and scoot in the field next to the sugar house. She asked about the horses and what we used them for. She seemed rather impressed that horses were still used for working and not riding. It felt good to explain to her the relationship with our animals and our work here on the farm. I hope I made an impression on the couple, and not for selfish reasons. I think it is important to show what we all do with our animals and land to keep the general public from forgetting about us.

Ed

[mitchmaine]

hi ed, that was an important talk that you had with your visitors from concord. when you live with animals for a while they truly become part of your life doing chores and so on, and i understand that we can get so used to them being there. but it totally amazes me when, in this day and age of television and computers and youtube and so on, that people have no concept of working horses, or maple production, or anything earth connected for that matter. good going. it takes patience.
we are almost tapped out. another 100 tomorrow and we can start boiling. that snow the other night left us with 5″ of wet spring snow. good for moving sap tho’. the downside is that the sap we have collected is frozen in the buckets and we need some real warm days to loosen that up. i’ll see if i can get a photo of the horses in the sugarbush for you. carring a camera out there might be a challenge. best wishes, mitch

[mitchmaine]

all tapped out last weekend. winter has returned. lots of snow predicted, but we will wait and see. nothing running. two thirds of our buckets are almost full of frozen sap. so we will have something to boil someday. in the meantime, fattening up my pulp pile with some more fir.

[Claddagh Farms]

Been froze up for days here in Waldo County. No sap running, buckets frozen solid. All my storage is frozen. Looks like it will warm up enough by the weekend to get things moving again. Felled some dandy clear ash logs in the meanwhile. Going to mill a bunch of poles, tongues, eveners and sled parts soon.

[Ed Thayer]

We were able to gather a little sap this weekend and made another 5 gallons of syrup. Things are frozen up good now and will take a couple of days to thaw. I hope the weather will give us a break here soon so the maples can give up some sweet sap.
How are things on Maine Mitch? Did you get much snow from the last storm?

Ed

[mitchmaine]

hi ed,
same story here. frozen sap. it softened up in the pails enough the other day, that i got a chance to toss away some ice. but the sap left wasn’t enough for a boil. but it sure sweetened it up. i brought some of the ice home and thawed it out and tested it and it was 0% sugar or just water. i started to worry a little bit about the buckets splitting from the ice. that has happened before.
we have about 6″ of snow out here in the fields and 8-10 in around the trees, so if it gets real warm, the snow will keep it cool enough to run some. i am guessing weds. or thursday it may break open. i’m out there most days puttering around cutting some more fir to fatten up the pulp pile, so i get to watch it carefully. my son is coming home for a visit this week to help sugar, and a local farmer helps me collect, and another young man is helping out in trade for some experience driving the team so life is good. we are all waiting for break in the weather. you too, i bet. good luck there, and good sugaring. mitch

[mitchmaine]

Still boiling? http://www.mainemaplekitchen.net Scroll down to our journal.

[Livewater Farm]

Mitch seems like we are all done here no freezing nights now for 5 or 6 days and none in sight according to weather report; made jist over half a crop of the lightest fancy and only 8gals of medium you get what you get with sugaring time to pull buckets and get washed up will be moving on to tuning up manure spreaders and hay ing equipment, horses in great shape and fit for pasture dragging and spreading
Bill

[mitchmaine]

hey bill, if we wrung out the evaporator, we might get a third a crop. sap was weak running barely 2 percent and lots of sand. syrup was dark but wonderful flavor. we collected in the rain yesterday. i guage the end by road conditions in the woods. but the frost is still coming out of the roadways. hoping for a few more runs. i hear about 60 degree weather this week so maybe thats that. we won’t have to work very hard putting up wood for next year. looks pretty muddy and dismal around here, but that can change in an instant. i’d like to be plowing soon. good luck with your spring chores, mitch

[Claddagh Farms]

Things seem over here as well…. had a great run early last week and then….and then…nothing. I’ve seen and heard of more people dumping cloudy sap this year. Old timer who brings vegetables…and now HD equipment :cool:….to the dooryard said he got nothing this year and people are packing it in all over our part of Waldo.

Not a night below freezing predicted for over a week, and high temps all the while… time to boil off what’s in the pan and clean up. Barely got a third of last year. Oh well…time to build that shed, restore the plows, spread manure, mill some wood and work on into the season!

[dominiquer60]

My friends in NY shut their evaporator down on Thursday, they got as much as they did last year, but the season ended 26 days sooner this year than last.

[Claddagh Farms]

We’re almost a month earlier to finish here too…. I was all set to quit, but the buckets were full of clear sap yesterday so we boiled another gallon. I doubt we will get even half of what we got last year, but at least we’ll have enough for the farm….

[mitchmaine]

Anyone still boiling? We are still sugaring. Ran yesterday, Collected and boiled this morning. High 70’s. 90 degrees in the sugarhouse. Making grade B. Warmer tomorrow? Gonna cool down (supposed to)this weekend. Hope for another run. Getting late now. One very strange weather pattern. What next?

[Livewater Farm]

mitch all washed up and put away on to spreading manure Vt cancelled manure spreading ban today so will start with the horse spreader tomorrow will not use tractor yet too much compaction still will drag pastures in between spreading normally I would be closing my driveway to traffic cuz of mud b ut now I have dust
Bill

[Michael Colby]

Collected another 2000 gallons of sap today, pretty milky and destined for grade B I suppose. Thanks to a great week, we’re now at about 65% of our projections. But I’m hoping there’s still time for a sugarbush at 2000 feet in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom to offer up another run.

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