A Ten-Year Adventure Begins
In 1989 we purchased this 31-acre chunk of property with gleams in our eyes for “working the land”, having no clear idea of what that really looked like. There were ten or so acres of overgrown pasture, a dozen or so neglected and sickly fruit trees, a couple of rows of concord grapevines (also diseased), and three rickety outbuildings. There were also fifteenish acres of woods, all hardwoods, including cherry, maple, walnut, hickory, and poplar. We had visions of reclaiming and redeeming all of it.
As time and money allowed, we repaired and restored…we pruned…we extracted…we replanted…we revived. The cleared area surrounding our home was soon teeming with blueberries and raspberries, and our garden supplied more produce than we could harvest. Landscaping was improved, buildings were reroofed and sided, and the pasture was cleared.
But those woods….
They were a terrific playground for the kids and their friends. Many a fort or treehouse was imagined and constructed to some extent. Trails were blazed and soon crisscrossed the underbrush. The adults were more mercenary in their endeavors, cutting firewood, hunting deer and wild turkey, and even allowing an Amish crew to harvest dozens of massive cherry trees on one occasion. Our vision ended there.
But in December 2008, all of that changed. In family lore the germ of the idea originated with either our daughter-in-law or one of our sons-in-law. Regardless of where that idea came from, as 2008 was winding down, most of the members of the immediate and extended Reeves family were engaged in various stages of a new venture…maple syrup. We had the trees, after all…how much work could it be?
A lot…as it turns out.
Within a few weeks of making the decision to begin sugaring several key components were being addressed with as little monetary output as possible. Construction was begun on our sugar shack…an 8′ x 12′ shed built from poplar boards from trees on our property. The walls and roof were constructed in the barn and later hauled out to our selected site…a high point in the woods. Leftover shingles finished out the roof, and a friend gave us an oak door that he had lying around in his workshop. On the appointed day, when several men were available, all the pieces were heaved into place and secured.
The stove for boiling the sap was made of a stainless steel hospital sink that our son found and a 250-gallon fuel oil tank. A friend did the alterations to the sink, welding in baffles that moved the sap along as the water evaporated. A door was fashioned into the tank for loading firewood, and a large thermometer was attached to help us know when that amber sap had become syrup. Sap entered the stove via copper tubing, running from a 100-gallon plastic tank above the stove.
Through friends and other sugaring acquaintances we got 20 old galvanized metal sap buckets and lids. Metal spiles were driven into our maples, buckets were hung on the spiles, and we waited for the thaw. Most of the trees were tapped with plastic spiles, with tubing that ran into five-gallon plastic buckets.
Once the sap began rising we began the task of gathering it once or twice a day. We had several collection tanks around the property, and we methodically emptied each sap bucket into them. An old Ford tractor had come with our property, and it was used for some of the heavier tasks. Sometimes we would pull a kid wagon around to help out. It was time-consuming and physically exhausting.
Finally we had enough sap to begin boiling. Even though we had a temperature gauge on our stove, we soon learned that the desired temperature could vary based on sugar content of sap; we became adept at using a hydrometer…a clear glass instrument that would rest on the bottom of a container of sap but float when the sap became syrup.
We needed to run the syrup through a filter to remove any crystals or sediment, so we built a stand that held a wool, cone-shaped filter; we later learned to add a thin fabric liner for more efficiency. Then we moved the operation into our kitchen for final heating to 180 degrees and bottling.
For our first attempt we came up with some rather beautiful medium amber syrup, and we settled on the name “Juggernaut” for our product…when someone jokingly asked, “Do you want a jug or not?” We were extremely proud of our results and shared with friends and family. The dream was becoming a reality, but we had just begun our journey.
To be continued…