Many Hands Make Light Work.

We made over 50 gallons of maple syrup this year with about 200 taps and sap for our neighbors at Kidds Hillbilly Farm. In years past we have put in over 400 taps. This year we got the first 200 in place, with plan to continue putting them in. The sap ran so well we were getting over 100 gallons a day, so we never got more put in. We kept getting more snow. When the weather was right the sap ran and ran and ran.

TJ put taps in earlier than we did, but the sap was not ready to run right away. When it did they collected it at their place and transported it as they could. TJ boiled at night and Mary Ann boiled during the day.

Our evaporator had a work our this year.We had a lot of wood stacked by the new sugar house, which worked very well though the holes in the metal roof from its previous use did drip when it rained and when snow melted off the roof.

As usual, Kim and family came for a long weekend. In years past we have in some cases carried the children on our backs or on sleds as we gathered sap. Last year they were learning to use snowshoes, with lots of fun, but not much carrying of sap. This year they all really helped. It was such fun to work with them.

Now we are done with the boiling....all that is left is the clean up and bottling.
Nephew John and his friends washed buckets yesterday. Some bottling will happen this week. We are thankful for a good year.

Getting Ready for Sap Season

February at the farm is a time for getting ready for maple syrup production and this year is no exception. The harness is cleaned, and needed repairs are in process. We will start working with Bubba, walking him around in harness, then pulling a drag to prepare the trails for collecting sap. Bubba really likes to go, and we often stand in front of him to keep him from moving forward while we are pouring sap into the sap tank.

This year there is plenty of snow on the trails. We plan to jerririg a rounded front for our sleigh runners to make it so Mary Ann can sit on it while driving Bubba along the sap trails. We had talked about making a snow roller for him to drag using a piece of culvert filled with cement, but never got arount to it.

For collecting sap with the horse we use a 65 gallon tank on a very old pung. A pung is a low slung rig with shaves and a seat for two at the front. Ours has two seats (carries 4 people) and the back seat easily lifts off making space for the tank on the back. We tend not to fill it to the top, which could make it too heavy.

The sugar house is built, coupola and all. The evaporator in place complete with a new smokestack. Buckets and taps are emerging from storage to be prepared for tapping trees.

We have entered an agreement with some neighbors, who will tap trees and gather sap, which will make it easier to have enough sap to boil every day. It takes about 100 gallons in the storage tank in order to have enough to boil and in past years it often took a couple of days to have that quantity collected. The neighbors plan to help us collect sap and feed the wood fired evaporator. They have already helped us gather and stack wood and work on finishing the new sugar house.

In previous years there have been 4 or 5 days in the three week season that were "100 gallon days" but usually collection yields around 75 gallons a day and sometimes a lot less depending on the weather. For our trees it generally takes 60 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, and we do not want the evaporator to boil to low and burn. This year we hope to be able to boil every day once the season begins. The season begins when there are several days in which the nights are cold, and the days are warm, which is what triggers sap flow in the trees.

Stay tuned for more information about our 2011 maple season....

Maine Maple Sunday 2010

We had a crazy sap season this year. In past years we have tapped trees early March and started boiling around the 15th. We know it is time for sap to run when there are nights below freezing and days in the high 30's or up into the 40's. This year we tapped over 200 trees around the first of March and by the 15th we had several gallons of syrup made. We probably missed some good sap runs in February. By March 21st, the first day of spring, we had made 12 batches with a little over a gallon per batch. Then we had over a week of warm days and warm nights...sap did not run at all.

The Sun Journal did a super article on the front page of the Saturday edition of the paper "From Sugar to Sheep". They also sent out a videographer to put a short clip online. To see it go to sunjournal.com/sumnerfarm. Some readers got the impression that this was our last year to do maple syrup, but if you read carefully to the end you see that this is the last year for our old sugar house (once a chicken coop), which is coming down soon to build a fiber processing building. Next year we will have the same evaporator in a smaller sugar house back closer to the southwest field. The article also talked about our growing flock of sheep including a picture of Willow, a triplet and one of Venus, our littlest lamb just 12 days old.

We heard that quite a few maple farms had actually pulled taps and were planning to boil water on Maine Maple Sunday. In preparation for the day we went out to collect sap on Saturday only to find ice in the buckets. The sap had run...and the day was so cold it had frozen. We took the buckets into the kitchen to thaw overnight. When people started to arrive early Sunday (before we planned to be open) we were still thawing the lines with a hair dryer and had not yet started a fire in the evaporator. "Come back later" Mary Ann said....

We had a wonderful team of helpers. One friend greeted people at the end of the driveway. She counted over 170 adults and many children who came to see our diversified farm. One of our helpers put together a bulletin board for the barn that is titled "Our Farm Family". It includes some pictures of our animals, the names of our sheep, tracing back to the first two, "Lucy and Winnie". It also includes the names and birth date of each of our 24 spring lambs this year, the six angora goats, Bubba (the horse), Nutter Butter and Mrs. Whatsit (the cats), Meg (the dog) and the chickens. No, we do not usually name the chickens.

We had helpers in the barn to answer questions about the animals and show off the new pole barn, built last fall. The 3 youngest lambs were in the barn with their mothers, and the rest of the flock was behind the barn. The lambs were not as playful as usual. It was cold in the barn!

Mary Ann was boiling sap in the sugar and made two gallons of sap, though it took her way into the evening to do it. She was talking about the process of turning sap into maple syrup as she fed the evaporator with wood all day long. She also tried to keep tabs on a table with cookies and coffee cake, but there was not time to make coffee or maple tea. At least it was warmer there.

Marty was in the shop where, at times, people were shoulder to shoulder and standing in line to buy their maple syrup, rovings, yarn, and knitted items. Another friend showed up just in time to take over the checkout stand so Marty could demonstrate needlefelting for a customer. It was toasty warm from the wood stove...another reason it was a popular place to be. One young person with angora bunnies bought lovely white roving to blend with her bunny fiber to spin into yarn for a baby that is expected in the near future. Another CSA customer signed up for our first annual Weekend Spring Fiber Gathering in April and went home with roving to spin as part of her fiber share. One of the Tuesday knitters showed up with an angora hat and a felted bag she had made. It was added to the table of knitted items to sell. The work for many knitted items were made by members of our Tuesday knitting circle with yarn from our animals. It was a contribution to the success of the day.

We do indeed have a growing fiber community.

Record Day for Sap Collection

After chores yesterday we started the day collecting sap with Bubba, our draft horse. We harnessed him up to the pung, which held a 65 gallon container. He was ready to go. The previous day we had gathered sap into 5 gallon buckets and carried them to the edge of the snow. With Bubba we traveled to each set of buckets and emptied them into the big container on the pung.
We filled it once and went back for 1/2 a tank more.

Mary Ann finished the maple syrup in the evaporator that was almost done while Cayenne and I put in 35 more taps. Every tree was dripping fast. We collected more sap into 5 gallon buckets, and pumped it into 32 gallon containers to store. We also refilled the galvanized tank that feed the evaporator. In the end we estimated about 250 gallons gathered.

Lets see, 250 gallons will make about 5 gallons of syrup, which requires over 20 hours of boiling. Our syrup is rich, extra dark syrup. We believe this is at least partly because we use red maples as well as sugar maples. It also takes us 50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup rather than the generally accepted 40 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup.

Pancakes for breakfast this am? You bet.