2023 Maple Month Week 2

March is roaring, but no big sap runs yet…

The first weekend of March brought us a foot of snow, but this week’s Nor’easter decided to really throw us for a loop. From Monday night through Wednesday morning, snow piled up around two feet on the farm, maybe upwards to 30 inches in some of our sugar woods. So off we went to clean up snow and check on any damage to our woods. Sap ran off and on through the storm and clean up. Without power in some locations, our vacuum pumps only ran intermittently. It was also difficult to get sap trucks out until roads were better cleared. With a forecast climbing into the 40s with sun today, we are hopeful the trees will give us a great run.

Since my last post, we were surprised to be making a beautiful Golden, Delicate maple syrup. Over the past several years, this grade has alluded us. Sorry dark fans, it’s still too early in the season. Our second weekend of maple month brought out the crowds. On Saturday, we were BUSY! Thanks to all for visiting and being patient if the shop got a bit overwhelmed at times.

We’re watching the weather closely as we move toward the weekend because it’s Maple Weekend!! Open hours for Maple Weekend are Saturday, March 18th and Sunday March 19th.

maple tap count
7,000 Taps

**First Boil - February 13, 2023**
15 boiling days so far
**Total Sap Collected so far…**
65,345 Gallons
1.84% Sugar Average
47 Gal sap needed for 1 Gal syrup
**Maple Syrup Total as of 3/13**
1243 Gallons - a new milestone!
**Maple Grades**
Amber Rich, Golden Delicate

As a bonus for this week’s blog, I thought I’d give a better overview of where our maple sap comes from.

First a bit of history. Prior to 2019 and for many years, we tapped and collected sap from our sugar orchard on a back road out behind Carroll Concrete in Newport. At this location we hovered between 1200-1300 taps. We made maple syrup in a historic 1920s sugarhouse along the flats located just in front of Wendell Vet Clinic. The building had charm, but as we continue to share our passion with visitors… we were quickly outgrowing our space. In 2019, we ambitiously took on the sugarhouse project our family dreamed of for many years. We had a great site picked out at the corner of Stagecoach Road and NH Route 103 just a mile or so from our usual spot. Some sugarhouses are built convenient to the maple trees, but due to our farm location, we built ours convenient to the people. This property is part of a bigger forested piece that we own. It is held in an easement through Ausbon Sargent, allowing it to be open for both public recreational use and our agricultural use. Fortunately our easement allowed us, with permission, to add an agricultural building. For the better part of a year, we built what is the sugarhouse that you see today. Although not completely finished, we made syrup in the new sugarhouse in 2020. Our grand opening plans and ambitions were quickly squashed by COVID and we closed to the public halfway through March. Nothing stopped us from making syrup though. In 2020, we added a leased sugar orchard that became available of NH Route 10 in Lempster which brought out tap count to around 2,500. While all of this was in motion, we’ve been thinking about our owned woods in Wilmot. It has been sitting and regenerating since the ice storm damage of 1998. In 2022, it felt like the timing was right. So we installed around 2,500 taps in our Wilmot sugar orchard - a big project that involved adding a vacuum/sap storage building and a whole lot of brush management before setting up lines. It is a beautiful forest with a lot of family history (we used to have a rustic cabin out there!) and is located along the SRK greenway. Fun Fact - our Sugarhouse location in Sunapee is also just off the SRK trail system.

Now we enter the 2023 season, anticipating 5,000 taps. This number required some equipment upgrades in the sugarhouse to handle that much sap, but fortunately we build things with expansion in mind. Although, any maple producer will tell you its amazing how quickly your sugarhouse feels too small. Adding another curveball, we were approached by a friend with a sugarbush in Newport that wanted to sell us sap. At this point, why not add more?! We agreed so he manages the woods, and we pick up the sap from his 2,000 taps. Surprise - we’re making maple syrup off 7,000 taps this season. It’s a bit of a mental adjustment!

I’ll be honest, we’re still figuring out how to handle all the things most efficiently. There are so many variables this season - 4 woods locations, some new equipment, a LOT of sap, and more employees. I’ll also acknowledge that just when you think you’re getting ahead, something on a farm always breaks. The 2023 season also decided to warm up about three weeks earlier than we were hoping, so we’ve played catch up most of the season so far. When the sap is running, we’re monitoring at least three of our sugar orchards with an app on our phone. This app shows us temperature, vacuum pressure at numerous locations in the woods, and sap tank levels as things flow from the trees through tubing to our collection stations. When there is problems with vacuum pressure, one of drives to the location to investigate - often fixing a leak in the line caused by tree damage, weather, or wildlife. When tanks are filling fast, our sap trucks are on the road most of the day hauling thousands of gallons from the woods to the sugarhouse. At the sugarhouse, we offload sap into storage tanks and measure the sugar content using a hydrometer. Sap on average is around 2% sugar. Check back next week for the next installment as we process the raw sap into maple syrup!