I truly can’t remember not being at the sugar house during sugaring season except the few years I was serving in the US Navy, then a few years as a Navy wife. Even then I came home as often as possible.
My mom says she never drank as much hot Maple Syrup as she did the year she was pregnant with me – so I’m pretty sure it’s actually part of my blood 😋🤣! The following few years when bedtime or naptime rolled around and my parents were spending hours boiling I was tucked away in a box, later I learned to sleep on a bench without falling off.
Fast forward a couple decades and I have been involved in all aspects of sugaring but have not actually boiled from start to finish. This year was the year for both myself and my nephew Blaine! Its been a good learning curve, I can now properly operate the Reverse Osmosis (R.O.) and understand ball valves vs gate valves and which tanks to send the raw sap vs concentrated sap.
Blaine has sugared on the rig that we use and he has a way of explaining how and why things are set where they are while we’re boiling. That’s not to say we didn’t have a few minor booboos along the way – nothing that wasn’t fixable – we didn’t lose any syrup and we didn’t burn any pans. We were glad that the old sugarmaker himself, Dad, was around that day to point out what we were doing wrong (literally he walked by, glanced at the hydrometer and told us the problem – Glanced at it in a walk by…. That’s experience).
We have floats that regulate the sap flow into the pans and automatic draw offs that pulls the syrup from the pans at the correct sugar content. Our job is to monitor the floats, valves, and gauges and make adjustments for everything from air temp, sap temp, and barometric pressures. Just when you have everything set so it running smoothly, something changes so your readjusting to keep the syrup flowing.
I get a little less sleep these days, but the pride and satisfaction of watching the Maple Syrup flow and the barrels fill up is enormous. But don’t worry – I still haven’t given up my first job that I started in the womb – taste tester 😋🍁💛
