Wednesday February 19, 2020


Gerri arrived last at the camp tonight...as usual..and stood outside for a moment to take in the smell of the boiling sap and the gales of laughter coming from inside. These people were clearly enjoying themselves!

The weather took a dip for the cooler side today and although there was perhaps a small run we had no plans to collect today...especially since there was no room to put it... anywhere!

Brad has his priorities straight and headed from his morning classes to the grocery to get everything he thought he would need to get through the afternoon alone. A picture of his survival cart:

He started a fire in the evaporator at 1230 and said it took him until almost 3pm to start taking syrup off. There is usually a lead time of at least an hour from fire start to having syrup ready to take off but today the air is damp and boiling is a bit slower than typical.

The tanks are as full as we have seen them..especially both of them. Here is a picture taken last night.





Dinner included Brad's hot dogs, some pizza , a salad and various side dishes enjoyed by Jenny, Kevin, Kelsey,Evan, Brad, Adam, Katie (and Teddy) and Gerri. 

During said dinner Brad says a choice word and runs into the storage barn as fast as we've seen him move in some time....Adam flatly said after him.."Hey Brad...top tank is full might want to shut the pump off." The sap waterfall , photographed by Brad's sister , had already began. Brad expressed some dismay that Kelsey took his picture and watched him as tools were getting wet .....instead of helping him. Since nobody could stop laughing and Brad was "sapping wet" his complaints didn't dampen the mood for too many seconds. He spent the next 2 hours attempting to dry his flannel shirt by the fire box without igniting it. 

Bob took the night off last night and returned with fresh enthusiasm. Or got tired of hearing about what happened last night and decided to address it. He planned a super fun activity for the evening. He ran off copies of the aerial photo of the woods and passed them out. He asked everyone to draw a picture of the paths and label them. His summation of this project is that it is clear to him how differently everyone visualizes "where they are in the woods" and how to get from one place to another efficiently. Which always matters to Bob, and matters to nobody else unless it is getting dark.

The group took this project pretty serious... Brad working off in a corner by himself where he could concentrate, Katie labeled hers carefully, Evan sought some help from technology..........

Below is a composite of the attempts. Melissa will be asked to do one upon return. They cackled for some time about how jagged her concept must seem. Easy to make fun of her as she was absent. Cody and Amy will have to mail their versions in!

We may frame these. Best group activity in awhile. Katie's version was fan favorite as she had new and creative names for the paths! ?
She also won the quote of the day..picking up Bob's map to get started she turned it at several angles  and asked "where is the camp?" Bob replied, "your in it!!"

The Woods According to Katie

Dave stopped in for a visit and is trying to understand our activity.

Bob actually suggested that we could set up the gps tracker and drive through the woods to get the
true path....he was reminded by all present...been there, done that driving in the dark through the woods yesterday and NOT gonna try it again!

Gerri asked at 930 how many inches left in the tank...this is the usual end of the night question wanting to know how many inches are in the upper tank yet to gravity feed into the evaporator..Adam answered "which tank?" Bad answer. It does not look like they will get all of the sap boiled in tonight.

WE HAVE A LATE ENTRY INTO THE DRAWING CONTEST!!!!..CODY SENDS HIS RENDITION (CHUCK WOULD BE PROUD OF THIS)

He missed the instructions about only using markers...but we appreciate the detailed efforts!



Sap Today : 22 gallons (Adam brought)
Sap To Date:1,552 gallons
Syrup off Today: 20 gallons
Syrup off To Date: 28.5 gallons plus

Tuesday February 18, 2020

Last night was a bit late. The guys came home (with tired dogs in tow)...at 1130pm. Every morning starts with excited dogs greeting you..this morning started with snoring dogs..the dogs and their humans were wiped out.







Quote of the day (by Melissa) "well this was a fun day!!" 


It was. One thousand fifty gallons of fun. 

In many, many years of collecting sap, we will remember this one fondly. 

This was a somewhat gray overcast day that felt cooler than the thermometers 43 degrees.

Bob and Evan made plans for the evening and Brad had school tonight so that cut into our work crew rather deeply. Therefore...the plan was to gather up the sap and let it sit until tomorrow. 

We were blessed once again to have great help from our friends and neighbors..Kevin, Jenny, Curtis, Bret, Melissa, Katie, Adam, Nancy, Kelsey and eventually Gerri helped gather our little run. We filled Walle three times!!

Brad helped with the first half or so...hard to keep track...but he had to get to school. We had a little accident with Walle last year.....and by we , we mean Kelsey...no front headlights...generally not an issue....tonight this was a problem...we replaced them with Curtis holding a flash light while riding on the back. It worked. 


When we drain the sap out of Walle, we have one pump that has several hoses/valves so we can run the sap to two different tanks/scenarios. 

Kelsey is watching the level up top, filled the top tank to within an inch of the top, bottom within 2 inches.




Had to face-time Brad to figure out the order of the valves, switches and timing. Poor Adam made one more trip to the woods to double check all this stuff at 9 pm.

Dark settles in quick in the woods.  The last pass was made with Melissa walking with a lantern down into the woods....for a bit along the wrong path :).....with Gerri driving Walle following her. This ended with Adam taking over the driving to make a tight turn and eventually find the full buckets we left behind. Bret was counting buckets exactly and frustrated as he could not find trees as described to him,    and was informed by Melissa and Kelsey that the number they shot him was only an estimate. Too dark to see eyes rolling. 

It took an embarassing amount of time for the group to figure out how much sap we had tonight..a banker, an ag salesman, someone who works with investments and has a degree in accounting and our newest MBA debated a long time til the banker summarized "a really lot". 

Thank you to Jack and Marsha and your dining room table for hosting us for chili and apples afterwords. Appreciated the warmth!

There was enthusiastic discussion about guest editors and contributing photographers...but these people all missed the publishing deadline ...so perhaps more pics tomorrow!




Sap Today: 1,050 gallons
Sap To date: 1,530 gallons
Syrup Today: 0
Syrup To Date: 8.5 gallons

Monday, February 17, 2020
(President's Day)

Lucky enough to have the first run on a national holiday when some had the day off of their day job!

The first day of the season is always a bit of an adventure... Brad and Bob headed to the woods around 1:30 pm, they worked to finish prepping the camp for the first boil. (However, you'll learn later there were a few items unchecked) The remainder of the crew, consisting of Melissa, Muff, Mary, Nancy, Adam, Katie, and Don arrived at 3:30pm. The lane was a bit slick this evening, as Kelsey found out the hard way, she hitched a ride in the back of Adam's truck. 

The crew got a late start (though normal for the Rine family to run fashionably late to their own gig) however they prevailed. Walle and crew headed down the South path to begin collecting sap. The buckets were anywhere from 1/3 - 3/4 full which made for a good gather for the first day... their muscles are going to feel every bucket-full tomorrow! Bob took the first spill of the season, he admitted it so it must not have been too bad of a fall. He quickly retreated back to the camp to begin firing after the first sap came in. Don stayed to help lend a hand during this process. 

Otherwise, the group was quiet tonight until they returned to the camp. Melissa worked as the head chef for tonight's dinner; serving marinated lemon and herb chicken which, of course, hit the spot! Don also brought orange glaze cookies for dessert, yum. 

Melissa and Kelsey cleaned up dinner while the remainder of the crew began their typical banter. Topics of conversation tonight:
-NASCAR
-Mary's former racing days
-Is it an axe or a maul?
-Evan's GoPro
-Proper commands for a dog
-Where should we write this year's sap totals?
-What did the boys do between 1:30pm and 3:30 pm today???

The last topic of conversation was the result of a stressful 10-minute sprint. When the syrup was at 218 degrees and ready to pull off, Bob realized he set the pan up backward, meaning he would need to relocate his set up to the opposite side of the evaporator. This snafu lead into the realization the filters were not brought back to the camp. Evan rushed up to the house to bring the brand new filters back to the woods. Once he made it back to camp the group found they didn't have the proper buckets for pulling off syrup. The buckets were then retrieved...sans lids. This began the fourth trip back up to Jack & Marsha's for the lids. (Thank you, Marsha, for having these organized for us at the house!) Alas, the first bucket of syrup was pulled and labeled. For a few minutes, everyone was in a scene from Abbott and Costello, however, no syrup was damaged in the process and we think we know who's on first!

As of 11:07 pm Adam, Brad, and Bob are still boiling. When Evan and Kelsey left it appeared that Adam was in charge, though there was a "discussion" starting regarding the appropriate temperature of the fire. You'll hear more about that tomorrow. 

Sap Collected: 490 +18= 508 gallons
Syrup: Check back tomorrow, it's late!

(We will upload photos and videos to this blog tomorrow.)

Sunday February 16, 2020

Tap day!!! A busy day all in all from church this am to the first 4-H meeting tonight. 

8 people in 4 teams tapped the whole woods in 2.5 hours!

It was sunny today. No wind. You could place spiles and undo the tubing without gloves on! SO NICE...compared to any typical day of tapping in our memory.



Icing on the cake....the taps were actively dripping immediately!!

The tapping process involves waiting for a cold snap that will likely be followed by some warm (40 degrees is adequate) and sunny weather..that will typically be enough to initiate a sap "run". The weather forecast is favorable for the next week in that regard...if you tap too soon the taps scar off and do not run as well and if you wait too long and the buds pop...the sugar content changes in the sap and the taste is lost (bitter!). Never really know if you guessed correctly till the end of the season. 

We tap each tree by hand with a cordless drill and 5/16th inch bit. We attempt to put the new tap in an area of the tree that has not been previously tapped within 6 inches. We typically do not tap any of our trees less than 12 inches in diameter. 

The whole needs to be drilled at a slight angle to facilitate the sap draining.










The tap is lightly "tapped" in...no pun intended....with a hammer and we have the tubing connected to a food grade plastic 5 gallon bucket sitting near the tree. 

Our system is to have one person drill the hole and the second team member place the spile, tap it in and set the bucket. 

Now all we have to do is wait and see what mother nature provides! 

Having buckets and lids dispersed throughout the woods really helped this project. 

Local FFA student Maddie B helps Brad with spiles and buckets.


The group returned to the camp and lifted the back pan into place, a job that takes 4 strong people and 2 extras to move the wood braces...so we had enough hands on deck to get the back evaporator pan back down in the sand. We lift it out at the end of each season in an attempt to keep it from being exposed to the moisture in the sand all winter. 

We still have to get the edge of the pan caulked with heat caulking and do some dusting inside the milk tanks to have the camp ready. The tank and stairs will need to be put on Walle yet as well.....almost ready to go.

Thanks again to all who helped today.....PLEASE come back tomorrow...because this was a video of the flow two hours after we tapped!

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