It's M&M Season...

...And, I'm not referring to those delicious colorful candies that "melt in your mouth, not in you hand"...although, with Easter just two weeks away, that application of "M&M" would be appropriate.

But, no, I'm calling it M&M season for maple and MUD!

Yes, we are experiencing both this month.  The good news is that the sap still flows generously from our trees, and it still has decent sugar content.


As it warms up and spring truly arrives in the Northeast, the sugar content of the sap drops from 2-2.5%...to 1.5%...down to 1%, and so on.








With the reverse osmosis machine to concentrate the sap, we can still make yummy maple syrup from sap that is 1.2% sugar.  Once it drops below that...well...it just doesn't work so well.



Since my last blog we've continued to have this cycle of 2-3 days of collecting sap, then several days where the weather is just not conducive to sap flow.




We just roll with it...











...collecting, concentrating and boiling as we can.

We've bottled only about 5 gallons so far, mostly in 1/2 gal. and quart jugs...


...and store the rest in our handy-dandy food-grade buckets to be bottled at a later time when we're less busy with the "raw production" end of things.

I don't mind this at all.

Why you ask?  

Well, in order to bottle maple syrup properly, it must be heated up to 180-185 degrees Farenheit... which makes my house smell FABULOUS!!

It's a sticky job, but somebody has to do it! 










So far we've made "amber" and "dark" syrup.  The "very dark" usually comes at the end of the season, so, if not today's run, it's looking like we'll get one more good run towards the end of this week, which is likely to produce my favorite "very dark" syrup.

I can't wait to taste that rich, robust maple flavor on my pancakes and in my coffee or tea!  










We collect a grading and quality-control sample from each boil.  This photo shows the progressive darkening of the syrup we've made so far...

We're figuring on a couple more evenings of boiling yet this month, which also means a few more evening meals in the sugar shack...

I think tonight, I'll make pancakes and bacon....served with delicious dark maple syrup, hot, fresh off the evaporator!

(I know that I mentioned a new price list in my last blog, but we're just getting into our bottling...Next blog post, I promise!! Check back next weekend, Friends.)

Come on, Spring!

A Season to Remember, To Be Sure!

Unusual weather...in my last post I described Jack Frost's last stand....or so I thought.


We had spring-like weather for 3 days, then it seemed as if the floor of Heaven's giant storehouse of snow broke wide open!  We ended up with 6 or 7 inches over 3 days.












Then, we dramatically swung the other direction, again, and I was grilling burgers on the porch this weekend, while my family boiled sap in the sugarhouse!

We've had another 72 hours of decent sap flow, and we're expecting to collect some sap today, however, for the next 3 or so days, our temps aren't expected to rise above 30 degrees, which means the trees will rest from sap production temporarily.


This is actually working in our favor so far...it's giving us a chance to work out any kinks in our new system.





For example, since purchasing a syrup filter-press is a bit cost-prohibitive at this time, Don and Rosie have engineered a way to filter most of the sediment out of the sap before it even gets to the evaporator...

...And, then, Don runs the syrup through a double-filter made of two different types of fiber as we draw off the syrup!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Little, if any, mineral sediment remains and settles to the bottom of the drum or bucket.  An inexpensive and easy solution.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Another example of how the Westbrooks adapt and overcome!

We're still waiting for the manufacturer to send us the replacement part needed to run Don's RO, reverse osmosis machine.  In the meantime, however, our new evaporator is way more efficient than the old one!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Boiling time is reasonable even without the RO. However, Rosie and Don have been experiencing some long evenings in the sugar shack.  We're so thankful for some friends that have come by to lend a hand and keep us company.  We also enjoyed giving our neighbors a tour this weekend! 

Rosie has become quite adept at running all the machinery we have on the farm:

                                                                                                                                                                        I watch, in wonder, as her natural talents are brought forth by the challenges she faces.                                                                                                 I'm quite sure the skills she is developing will be useful in her adult life, and will be a source of blessing for those in her life.

Grace has been facing new challenges as well.  With me in cosmetology school every afternoon, she is becoming quite the family chef!  She's taken over much of the menu planning and grocery list composition.  I'm so proud of both of them!

Another thing we will always remember about this season....

At any given time, you may walk into my dining room and find this on the table next to rows of maple syrup jugs and jars!

I am enjoying my new education very much, although it is adding to the craziness of this maple season!

How this crazy weather will affect the end result - gallons of maple syrup produced - only God knows.  We'll keep working at it until the trees begin to bud...

Watch for our 2016 price list in my next blog post, Friends!  And, our on-line store will re-open in about two weeks.  

For our friends and followers in south-eastern PA, we plan to send along a supply of our delicious maple syrup with Nate (He lives near Parkesburg, PA) upon his next visit.  I will gladly put you in touch with him!

Jack Frost's Last Stand

In my last blog post, I mentioned that we were planning to tap trees on Valentine's Day....



Well, Jack Frost decided to dig his ice-capped heels in deep! It was 16 degrees BELOW zero upon sunrise on February 14th and our high temp was 4 degrees....not much warmer in the days that followed, either!  Needless to say, we did not tap trees....

We finally began thawing out, for real, just a couple of days ago.



And, yesterday...WOW!...who could ask for a better day to tap trees?

Unfortunately, our fearless leader, Don, was suffering with a stomach virus which threatened to rob us of several perfect sap-collecting days.



Thankfully, while Don confined himself to bed for the day, Will, Rosie, and our good friend, Rob, tapped most of our trees.

And, not a moment too soon...we're getting crazy-awesome sap flow today!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Don is mostly healthy again, though not as lively as usual just yet.  He, Will and Grace finished up a few things out in the woods first thing this morning, and got the releaser going.  He's very proud that all his engineering feats are working properly.  

In order to overcome elevation challenges, Don and Will built four sap ladders.  Those sap ladders, plus a wet-dry line come into this thing you see below:




It's called a manifold or booster...

It's purpose is to create a vacuum "pool" at the place where 5 sap lines converge, in order to support the vacuum pump, which is 900 feet away.   In other words, it brings together all the sap from every tapped tree into the one tube that carries it all down to the sugar house! Cool!  Don's a pretty smart feller, eh?

We still have one run of trees on high-vac gravity, along with 5 or 6 bucket taps.  That sap we collect using our very handy ranger....

...And add it to our bulk sap tank!

We had a decent run for our first day!  Our RO is presenting some challenges, however, they are surmountable, so it should be up and running in a couple of days.  

Stay tuned for more on that, the process of concentrating, boiling, and (my favorite part!) bottling...


As always, we welcome visitors.  We hope to be boiling full-steam later this week, so feel free to stop by next weekend to see....and smell...delicious maple syrup in the making!  

We'll have syrup for sale as well.

















                   

How Interesting!

This photo was taken on February 3, 2014....

This one was taken on February 1, 2015...















And these are from today, February 6, 2016....

I find it quite amusing that my son, Nathaniel, moved back to south-eastern PA, in part to escape the snow, and he's the one who got two feet of it last weekend!  

Definitely not a typical winter for Central New York.  Guess we're going to learn how an atypically- warm winter with much less than average snow (annual average over last decade is 90.5 inches!) affects sap production.... How interesting!  

The past two weeks we've been working steadily to get ready, knowing that we are going to have an early maple season compared to last year, in which the sap didn't flow until...March 6th!

March 4, 2015!

Last year we were tapping trees in 3 feet of snow and temperatures in the teens.  Poor Rosie didn't have snowshoes last year!  Her grandparents gave her a set for Christmas and she didn't even get to break them in this year.


Now, we are supposed to get a few inches of snow in the next week, but nothing even remotely close to last year's conditions.  And, we're expecting to have our usual mid-February "deep freeze" that will last only about a week.







We'll continue our preparations...



Wiring the lights in the sugar shack....

                               Bringing the sap mainline down to the sugar shack....

                                                               Cleaning out the bulk tanks and setting up the releaser....

This week we'll place the RO in the sugar shack and plumb it into the feed pump...

                                                                                                                                                                                    And, hopefully, we get to test out the whole system with the little bit of sap we're collecting from the high-vac gravity line and 5 or 6 bucket taps we have around the house.

Looking at the monthly forecast, we are planning to tap the bulk of our trees next weekend...Valentine's Day!  Nathaniel's coming up for a visit, so we'll have an extra pair of hands, and this mama will be happy to celebrate Valentine's Day with a home-cooked dinner and special dessert for the whole family!

The sweet good-bye of winter is on it's way, My Friends!