the nature of maple season

Every maple season is unpredictable. It’s simply the nature of it since maple sap flows at the transition of winter to spring. We never know how the season will turn out. Farmers love to chat about the weather and their predictions, but its really up to Mother Nature. The 2020 season has given us even more variables. We’re finishing up the construction of our new sugarhouse and experienced numerous setbacks along the way. We are thrilled it is finally operational and open to the public, but we’re still juggling finish work as the season progresses. Now we are faced with an international crisis - COVID-19, commonly known as coronavirus. To be honest, I’d like to go back to just worrying about Mother Nature affecting our season. We’re moving forward with maple production, but certainly having plenty of conversation about our maple month and maple weekend open houses.

This weekend we are business as usual but taking precautions.

We’re open 10am till 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. We ask you to use common sense, wash your hands, and keep your germs to yourself. We have a sink with hot water for hand washing, and I’ll be disinfecting doorknobs etc as much as possible. Our new retail room is spacious and keeps you out of the elements with wood stove warmth. I’ll have free maple cookies on hand, individually wrapped for you to enjoy. Come over for a tour and stock your pantry with maple syrup - it’s certainly more essential than toilet paper anyway! We just refreshed our grass fed beef supply with steaks, roasts, burger, sausage, stew beef, and more. Our beef is processed at a USDA butcher, vacuum sealed, and frozen so we can offer a quality product. Fill your freezer with beef while we’ve got plenty available.

The next challenge -
the upcoming Maple Weekend

Maple Weekend 2020 is coming up on March 21st and 22nd, and this year we are combining the event with a Grand Opening Celebration. We’re monitoring guidance from the NH Maple Producers Association and NH Department of Agriculture. At this point, we are business as usual, but we all know things could change quickly due to the COVID-19 outbreak. We know other states in the northeast have already called off their maple events.

Our Grand Opening/Maple Weekend celebration was going to feature a delicious farm to table lunch with Scott Brothers New American Meats. The Scott Brothers are amazing chefs and good friends. The event also would feature our usual free tours, maple samples, and more. At this moment, we are scaling back the event and will plan a Sugarhouse Grand Opening later this year. It will be off-season, but we can still enjoy all things maple and local food. That being said, we hope to be open March 21st and 22nd (10am till 4pm) for Maple Weekend tours. If anything changes, we will update you as soon as possible through all our social media channels.

Offering local delivery of our farm Products

If you’re concerned about going out in public, we understand. That’s why we’re offering free local delivery of beef and syrup with a minimum order of $30. Send us an email with your address, and we will follow-up with detailed price lists and availability. We have the ability to email you an invoice and pay by credit card. This is your chance to stock up your pantry and freezer with local farm products. We don’t want anyone to feel left out or have an empty freezer!

and lastly - a maple production update

As I mentioned, this maple season has had us juggling construction, work in the maple orchard, and maple syrup production. Just a few more elements added to our typically busy maple season. It was all hands on deck to get our woods tapped in middle-late February. We started off on snowshoes, but certainly don’t need them now.

When the trees initially let the sap flow, we weren’t quite set up at the sugarhouse. We donated our first 1,000 gallons to our good friends at Knolltop Farm just up the road. After that, things started to work in our favor. Our first boil was on Wednesday, March 4th. Since then, we’ve boiled six out of the last eight days. We’ve gathered 12,000 gallons of sap and produced just over 232 gallons of maple syrup to date. The maple grade started as an Amber Rich and came very close to a Golden Delicate before slowly transitioning all the way to a Dark Robust. The weather has been mild and consistent. The last couple years we got used to a mid-season freeze up with a few days off, but not this year. We’re holding out hope for some below freezing nights to keep the season going for another couple weeks. Once the trees are convinced its spring and start to bud out, the maple season at HHF will be over. Fingers crossed that we keep our seasonal goal of at least 500 gallons.