Portage River Farm

The warm weather of mid-March has finally taken its toll. At the end of last week, the buds on the maple trees in our sugarbush began to swell and open. That is the signal that the sugaring season has reached the end as the internal chemistry of the trees change to stimulate blooming and leaf growth.

We pulled the taps from the trees, washed the equipment and began boiling down the final batch. That final batch has been accumulating in the freezer for a while. Most nights would find me out behind the house feeding the evaporator until the early hours but I was unable to keep up with the volume of sap that arrived with each new day. By the time the taps were finally pulled, 63 gallons of sap had accumulated.

I completed the process late last evening and got it into the bottles. The photo shows the results which totaled 1.3 gallons of syrup. That brings our total yield for this season to 1.8 gallons. It's a tiny sum but I have to say that I'm as proud as can be of every drop.

It has been an adventure but I'm relieved that it is done. Reflecting back on the experience, I would have to say that it was a great deal of work. Those seven weeks of lugging sap and tending the woodstove in the cold made me realize that I need to come up with some labor saving improvements. A big step would be the acquisition of a proper evaporator to speed the boiling process but I'm not sure that our small number of trees justifies the expense.

The last footnote to the season is to mention that my neighbor has shown an interest in getting involved next year. His woods are considerably larger than ours and he seems very interested in having me expand my operation to include his maples as well. In fact, he very generously supplied much of the firewood that I used this year. When the weather and our schedules permit, we plan to take a survey of his woods and talk about the possibilities for next year. Who knows, maybe a nice shiny evaporator is in my future after all!