The off season is spent on maintenance, repairs and improvements.
Our maple woods do not have a lot of topography, so gravity flow is not an option. Sap is drawn from the trees under vacuum to pump houses, then is pumped to centralized storage tanks. To understand the layout, picture a center point with lines radiating out in a semi-circle. Read more…
Last Spring, we transitioned to a maple syrup operation that was set up with vacuum lines and included a beautiful western red cedar sugar shack complete with a traditional cupola. The shack had not been used since the lines were installed, leaving a little bit of preparation before the season. Read more…
Maple syrup is the product of boiling sap over heat until it reaches 7 degrees above the boiling temperature of water. While that is typically 219° F, the boiling temperature is influenced by atmospheric pressure. The amount of time required to cook sap down to syrup depends on the heat, Read more…
Last spring we encountered problems with mud. This is a normal part of spring in northern Wisconsin and is especially prominent when the frost begins to thaw from the ground. The downside is that mud gets tracked everywhere. Over the summer we had a couple of projects to reduce the Read more…