Saturday February 15, 2020











Winter finally arrived this week with a few inches of snow ....and in the last couple of days some single digit temperatures....yea!  Although it does not feel good...the freeze thaw cycle is paramount for good sap production.


Nobody is more surprised than we are...but we have friends that keep showing up to help on big days! We are very thankful for these insane people with poor memories of the last time they helped us (and got wet and cold and tired).  

Bob sent out a text to our family and a couple of others to help throw out buckets and lids today. This process involves deciding which trees to tap and how many taps per tree... .thus he did not send out the usual group text. This is typically a slow process. Hoping to move the equipment to the woods and perhaps to tap trees tomorrow.

Bob and Brad spent a few hours this am moving totes around and loading the truck and trailer with the lids and buckets that have been stored in the shop since being washed in the spring. The totes were then moved with the fork lift onto the back of Walle (the name we have for our little crawler tractor we use in the woods)


This process takes a bit of time as we cannot haul of the buckets and lids at once. We have found that it helps to have them at the trees and cuts down on the number of non maple trees that get tapped...it happens. Bob tracks down the offender and makes fun of them the entire season.......

Brad explaining to Collin to take those buckets  20 feet ahead, put two on the tree at 3 o'clock, then one on the tree 10 feet to the right and one on the obvious one that you walk by in between them. True story. Clear as mud. 

Megan noted today that she was glad Adam was driving....rather than others.....

To give you an idea of how cold it felt out today with the temperature at 29 F and a breeze out of the south...Bob and Adam...two people who never complain about being cold....were the first to fly the white flag and declare the adventure over for today! Our friend Don came for a bit he headed home when numbness began. Adam came dressed to walk and not to drive...he ended up driving..and cold. 


Adam, in a personality departure, got a little rowdy with Brad about fixing up some of the deeper tracks in the always swamp-like soft maple grove. Walle had a close call with gravity....

We finished 90 percent of the buckets and 80% of the lids when Bob had to return to the shop to get the rest to finish. Seemed like he was gone a LONG COLD TIME. The rest enjoyed a drink and fine carbohydrates from the dollar store while awaiting his return. A person in motion remains warm. A person who stops moving...gets cranky & cold.

 Evan was very chipper on day #1!!







Bob relates it took him a long time to get the final tote loaded into the truck due to the livestock guarding it.........funny but rather lame. Nana Mary and Pastor Cathy will be proud of Bob for enjoying the moment and taking a picture 
😇

These creatures are new to the farm thanks to our former friends the Bishops..named after them with loving affection....Martha (left) and Susan (right). 


Bob eventually returned and we had the rest of the lids and a few more buckets tossed out in no time. Calling it a day as the wind is out of the south and rather miserable. See what tomorrow brings!



Thanks to all!!!!!!

Bret, Bob, Collin, Jake, Molly, Brad, Megan, Muff, Gerri,Katie, Evan and Adam and Melissa our photographer!

Sunday February 9, 2020

Finally looks and feels like winter! Bob and Brad started the day shoveling snow at church. Marsha weighed in that there is no snow in Florida today! Not not a lot here,  just a couple of inches. We quickly headed to the woods thinking snow was coming after lunch.....it came, but took until 5:00 pm for it to really crank up (a very pretty snow this evening). 

We walked the entire woods, there were 2 trees across the first stretch of the south path and one in the middle stretch up to the north and the rest were pretty much clear. Walle was involved to move two of the trees. Bob and Evan did not draw their phones fast enough to catch the look on Brad's face when Walle tipped forward..but they both report it was priceless. Bob said it reminded him of Morgan's face when she had to hop over a log while gathering one day. 

We made the first sweep out of the camp. One of the blessings of the wet spring and inability to plant was getting things cleaned up and put away nicely! This was a sweet surprise as we had forgotten how tidy we had things!! Here they are tipping up the front pan and using a brush to dust it a bit.

Evan used the magnet to clean the stray hardware out of the grates. Interesting array of nails, bolts, hinges and ????



















Gerri has complained for years about being left without a truck to go to the woods. So she is the proud owner of a very fine jeep. There is however an issue with the back window. And Lola, who likes to ride with her head out the window, sees this as a nice feature. We are working to resolve this matter :( Photo contributed by a panicking Kelsey.

3 wet dogs. No sap. No syrup.

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: