Winter of  2019-2020

Catch up Post!!

Time flies along and this year has been no exception!

Frustrating weather was the theme of 2019 for a multitude of US Farmers.  Nebraska and neighboring states had horrid floods that wiped out many farms. We had an exceptionally wet spring here in northern Ohio as well. Many local acres went unplanted this year but it all pales in comparison to what others suffered elsewhere. 

This picture was taken on May 25th...the plan was to plant a community garden at church that  day..did not happen.

The above picture was taken on June 20th at the corner of twp rd 178 and CR 21 .

Abundant moisture continued in the fall............

Halloween found it raining...again....Jack had some health issues and he bugged out to the warmth of Florida. Gerri and Karen made a trip to Michigan for syrup bottles,..... again in the rain!

November was a very busy month for Sugarwood Farms! Kelsey and Katie, with Evan and Adam in tow,...did a craft show and had a lot of fun doing so.

They worked with Bob making candied nuts to sell. This was a big hit! We painted up some of our older syrup buckets for sale ......this was a lot of fun..haven't showed Jack how we defaced them...until now :)

 Canning syrup for the holidays is always a bit of a rush and this year was no exception. One evening we bottled 14+ gallons of syrup which Bob said was pretty much a record for him!!

Cody and Amy drove in for the week of Christmas and the guys spent most of it at the woods. They are attempting to clean up the last of the logs down from the tornado of 2013. The supply of firewood for the sugarcamp was quite low and  the weather was conducive to the project.

They also made a quick tour of the woods and removed several trees that were down along the paths. Gerri, Amy and Kelsey made some amazing grape vine wreathes to entertain themselves during this project.

The guys rather quickly ran out of carts in which to stack wood.These carts make moving the wood about in batches with a pallet jack fairly easy.   Bob did some online shopping and made friends with a gentleman in Cleveland named Bruno (true story). Bob and Brad  made the snowy trip on Martin Luther King day and loaded Dale's 5th wheel trailer with lumbar carts (the kind you feel ridiculous pushing around at Lowe's or Home Depot). At any rate , we are "back in the carts" for wood business! Brad thinks we should try to race with them through the woods. 🐎

We have a couple of new projects in the works that have taken a lot of time and attention this winter. We have purchased some new processing equipment...more information on that to follow! Stay tuned for our mystery product!!!

Much attention has been paid to our future growth. Our family goal is to stay connected to the historical process that we enjoy and want to pass down to future generations and yet streamline things to a point we can all manage on the evenings and weekends. This week was devoted to refrigeration.....a big thank you to Newt, Bret, Brad, Kelsey, Bob, Adam, Evan, Cooper and Ben who worked really hard on our latest cool project! More to come on that as well!!

Thinking about somebody finding time to go to the woods soon!!

Sugarwood Farms

Saturday and Sunday April 27th and 28th

Lola's face hidden by her paw says how we all feel about cleaning buckets...... washing up buckets and lids is hands down the least fascinating part of syrup making, but clearly is a necessary evil!!

Mother nature provided a surprisingly beautiful morning for a walk in the woods. After running a few errands, Brad , Bob and Gerri fired up Wally and went to pick up buckets with the two happiest dogs ever! 


The buckets are easiest to clean up if you address that issue immediately when you are done collecting sap....but there were responsibilities at church and school that have taken us away for a few weekends....not to mention that we have had a lot of rainy weather in the April. 

So...we are rarely in the woods much in the of April at all, much less this late. We took a few minutes to enjoy the floral display that we often miss. The floor of the woods carpeted in a wondrous variety of white, yellow and purple flowers.

According to Nancy (our educational dinner conversation) the white flowers above and below are trillium, Ohio's state wildflower! We are thinking it may be illegal to pick them in Ohio! While they may be endangered, Bob laughed that we have a solid acre of them!

We are thankful that Adam and Katie piled the buckets and lids in piles along the paths in the week following quitting,  making bucket pick up this am much easier..thanks!

T

The primary wildlife we saw in these bucket piles was snails! Some even with hard shells! 

We made three trips back to the camp and loaded the buckets and lids into the truck and trailer and hauled them to the heated shop. The weather forecast was spot on today, the afternoon was gloomy, overcast and raining by late afternoon. 

 Saturday was bucket day .......we scrubbed up all but 80 of the buckets! Adam and Jack helped in the afternoon as well.  We quit about 5:30 pm and explained to Bob that he was going to take us out somewhere warm for dinner! We enjoyed a late supper at Twin Lake's tonight.

 Jack came for lunch.....doing dishes for your lunch has a wicked twist sometimes!

 Our accomplishment for the day 428ish...nobody really cared to count by the end...scrubbed in warm water with Dawn and then rinsed in bleach water.

Sunday...Bob and Gerri went to the shop about 7 am to finish the 80 buckets before church. We borrowed the pressure washer from Dale and needed to heat up the water so this felt like a bit of a slow start. (realize we should not be doing this on Sunday...not sure we have choices this week however so we plod on).Brad and Bob flipped all of the buckets over to drain in the opposite direction today.

Bob was following Gerri to church..unsure what happened to that...saw a squirrel I guess...leaving almost 2 year old Braxton to say "where is Bob?"...unknown....

Bob , Jack and the 20 somethings made there way to Green Springs for breakfast however!!

They met back by 1230 or so and started washing lids. Kelsey and Evan returned from a trip to Cincinnati for Evan's work today and helped out. We laughed today that we are going to text Cody and Amy that we are gonna leave them a hundred to finish!! Lids are perhaps faster to wash in some ways...but each piece of tubing and spile is rinsed with a power spray of bleach water ...Bob did this job today. Brad busied himself hanging the lids, as his drainage tower got taller, Katie moved over to help him. 

We play some tunes and make smalltalk while scrubbing!

The groaning started today.....people looking for ibuprofen. This is hard work....at an awkward angle! 

 It is important to hang the lids and tubing so they drain and dry out..this is always a tricky , Brad set up a pallet rack to use as a giant hanger...first try for this and it looks like a "do again".

 Amen!!!!

Thursday April 18, 2019

Happy birthday Evan !

 The woods changes so quickly! There is a carpet of small flowers covering the majority of the woods and the birds are busy making nests and a lot of noise. Much more of an alive  atmosphere than 2 weeks ago!












Responsibilities at church, work and school took some precedence over closing up the camp. There has been a nice break in the weather allowing the guys to apply fertilizer on more than half of the farm in the last couple of weeks. 

Katie and Adam worked at pulling the taps and placing the lids and buckets next to the path a couple of weeks ago. 

Bob is off on spring break this week so we  are trying to work on the clean up process. 

Kelsey and Bob have been busy taking orders and canning off syrup. They made some sample bottle holders this week also. 

Gerri was off work Thursday afternoon so she and Bob headed to the camp to start tidying up a bit. The dogs were glad to have the field trip as well! 













We filled the tank on Wally with water at the house and rinsed out the two stainless milk tanks that we store sap in during the season. This was the easy part. 













The evaporator was a little trickier to clean. When we sense the last day of the season has arrived, we typically chase the last of the sap through with water, but this did not happen this time....so....... 520 gallons of water, 2 brushes, multiple scratch pads and 3 hours later, the pans look pretty good.

 We built a small fire in the box to warm and help to loosen the scum. We bucketed about half of the water out...... 4 gallons at time. Basically decided to quit when we argued about who would have to drive home... turning the steering wheel sounded like a miserable task...arms were like jello. 

Tuesday April 2, 2019

So Bob sent out a text on Sunday saying to plan on gathering on Monday April 1, guess that was an April's fools joke, ...honestly not sure what happened to that plan but that did not occur.

Today, Tuesday,  was a pretty day and warm, almost 60ish this afternoon. 

The sun was out a good bit of the day and a few of the trees had a nice sap run.There was still a snow cover on most of the grass this morning that melted slowly off over the course of the day.

Dale arrived to drive and Nancy, Melissa, Adam, Katie, Evan, Muff and Brad got started. Gerri arrived in time to start the north (early for her Nancy pointed out!) and they were later joined by Kelsey. We looked at the quality of the sap in the bucket and kept it or dumped it depending on the clarity...Brad always tastes the sap...but the rest of us used our noses and eyes in the hopes of not needing to live in the bathroom for the rest of the week.

We gathered 250 gallons and Adam brought about 30 gallons tonight..perhaps more than we thought.At 8 pm there was 11 inches in the upper storage tank...that is generally a good thing when you want to get bed on a "school" night.

The woods was muddy and difficult to walk tonight. Notice the jackets laying on the front of Wally by Dale's window, it was one of those nights when you were warm as long as you were moving, but quite cool out of the sun if you were not in high gear! Layers are always appropriate "woods attire". 

 We have decided however that the party is over and we pulled many of the taps while we walked tonight.

Discussion included confessions to Bob about what occurred here last Wednesday night when the 20 somethings were here alone. They were busy looking at the baseball game schedule tonight and talking about which games they would attend. Spring has sprung.





You can tell it is the end of the season due to the sharp deterioration in food quality and expectations. We had fried chicken tenders tonight with a side of licorice. And this seemed to satisfy everyone.






Each one of these sample bottles represents the contents of one storage unit of syrup (about 5 gallons), you can see how the quality changes as the season progresses. Generally, it darkens as the weather warms. The lighter syrup is more highly regarded and graded as the best. We do like the darker syrup however for cooking. 

The final gathering crew of 2019....Evan took the pic, Brad and Bob were uncooperative about attending the photo session. 

Total Sap Today: 250 plus 30 gallons

Total Sap To Date: 

Total Syrup Off Today:

TOtal Syrup Off To Date: 

Wednesday March 27, 2019

Today was a day that we have been looking for the last three days.  Evan checked the woods and relayed back that we might need to send the call out. Some buckets were half full. 

The text message brought out Brad, Katie, Adam, Melissa to start with Evan.  Kelsey came a little later with Bret following up. Gerri showed up last bringing pizza and salad.  Bob was at home hsaking his crud that he picked up.  Twenty somethings in charge of the operation tonight.  Word got back that Bret called out a temperature of 222,  for the record Bob says he has never had it that high.

Birthday cake was served at the camp tonight. Katie's birthday is tomorrow.  Sadly we pieced it together and realized we forgot Melissa birthday Monday. Happy Birthday to the ladies this week.

Total Sap Today: 280 gallons + 23 
Total Sap To Date: 5,875 + 245 Gallons
Total Syrup Off Tonight: not reported yet gallons
Total Syrup Off To Date: 122.5 gallons

Sunday March 24, 2019

Sunday March 24, 2019

Another beautiful day, great company and a leisurely walk through the woods.   The trees are showing they are growing tired too.  The conversations dwell around not how many days we can gather, but when will the end be.  It is bitter sweet topic but if you've done this you know that is a mystery we have all been trying to figure out.  Maybe it's a short season , maybe it goes on, maybe it rewards you with a double.(2013)

Brad started today at 1:30 with moving empty wood carts to be joined by Bob who was setting up the evaporator while waiting to discuss planting intentions for the next year with Brad C.  Kelsey and Evan arrived to start a fire to cook pizza on open flame.

Brad had a discussion with a hunter that was trailing a wounded coyote thru the woods.  Word was spread by radio to unload guns.  (Hunters in the woods this time of year is not something that we can say we have experienced  before. ) A couple of shots eventually were heard, long story, anyway added some excitement to gathering. 

 Gerri, Muff, Susan, Adam, Katie, Brad, Vivian came to gather joined in guest appearances by Cathy L. and Don C who dumped buckets.Glad to have their help and company today! 

Dale and Karen showed up to help about the time the crew was finishing. ( I think Daylight saving time was last week?????  Bob wrote that to be clear. ) Susan R. brought some maple butter back to try..it was good...we compared it to Bob's version.....

Thanks to Cathy for bringing some of the preserves..always fun to try new stuff!

Bob fell asleep. Some people, (Adam and Katie), thought it would be funny to yell that the temperature was 220,to wake Bob up.

3 minutes later it really was 220 and it was all hands on deck.

Then there was a report we only had 2 1/2 inches in the top tank. In a nutshell, this means we have too much fire and too little sap, the pan running dry is not something we want to experience. This was the fastest everyone has moved , especially at one time, in a LONG TIME. 


Vivian, Katie and Gerri grabbed buckets and went to find any sap they could in the woods and the guys pulled some of the fire out of the pit. 

The "quick gather ' crew was joined by Evan and Kelsey who emptied a lot of buckets to get about 5 gallons. Adam added that directly to the evaporator. Did not burn dry!!

 This really has been a rather grueling stretch. Everybody is tired...including Teddy who did not make it home without falling asleep. 

Dog spa treatment before bedtime. 

Julie will be glad to know that Piper also got  a bath tonight, best described as a "step in the right direction" not a solution. 

Have more fun pics and stories from this weekend and no gumption left to share today! maybe later this week!



Total Sap Today: 220 gallons + 14 
Total Sap To Date: 5,595 + 222 Gallons
Total Syrup Off Tonight: 4.0 gallons
Total Syrup Off To Date: 122.5 gallons