Announcements

U32  High School in Montpelier, VT, where I now work, is holding their annual Fall craft Fair to support the 8th grade class trip.  I will be there selling my products along side of Willow Road Watercolors.  Please come out and support the 8th grade and us as well other local artisans.  November 7th from 9am to 3pm.  see you there.  

Well we had our first maple season in Vermont this past spring I had an amazing season it was a bit of a thrash I had to buy a brand new evaporator that I got from CDL.  A new 2x6 raised flu evaporator that I got about a week before the sap started running.  I got it positioned bricked and all set up a day or 2 before the sap started to run.   I got tubing run for about 120 taps and got my old bb2 dairy vacuum pump hooked up and had some of the best runs I ever had.  We had so much snow, apparently we moved into the snow belt of VT at one point I think we had an almost 3 to 4 foot snow pack you couldn't get around unless you had snow shoes on.  we had a running joke that every day I had to clear the driveway.  We haven't had that much snow on the ground in about 10 years. 

So I didn't miss a season.  We had some crazy sap runs, some days I got almost 3 gallons per tap.    Sugar maples are a huge difference from the swampy red maples I had before.  I ended up with 68 gallons on a 120 taps.  Thats crazy when a bad year at my place in NH would be 70 gallons on almost 600 taps.  Flavor was way different than my trees in East Kingston.  Made much lighter syrup almost all amber/ rich syrup  where I used to make all dark/robust syrup in East Kingston.  

Its coming along,  the slab is poured and the trench for the electric is done and conduit is in the ground.  I started working on the sill plate.  I decided to go with a timber frame kit that I ordered quite a while ago and was delivered and is now in my garage.  I just ordered the roof decking 1x8 tongue and groove that should be here in about 2 weeks.  Very exciting and alot of work!!!   hoping to get in there for this 2027 season.  finger crossed.  

My bees didn't make the bad winter last year, my fault though.  the last snow we got kinda buried them and they didn't have a good air flow and too much moisture in the hive.  So I ordered 2 packages of bees from a place near Eden, VT about 20 minutes from the Canadian border.  They did great!!!  Ended up with about 120lb of honey.  We have so many wildflowers around our property.  Thimble berries, black berries, wild strawberries for fruit  and just so many other wild flowers.   They are doing very good.  

Sping hopefully spring!!!!   I moved the shed to make way for the sugar house, that will be converted to a layer chicken coupe/ meat bird/ turkey coupe. its pretty big so it should be able to fit everyone comfortably.  I so miss having chickens!!!