It is mind-blowing how much press we have gotten lately, focusing on agriculture. In this fast pace world we live in, with technology and politics, it is wonderful to see some attention spent on food/agriculture which is the roots of New England. It is so easy to forget where the food in our grocery stores come from, and this welcome attention lately has shown that we need to be careful what we take for granted.
But despite the press that we are not tapping this year, and that we will not produce a drop of syrup this year… let us be clear… WE ARE STILL DOING FREE EDUCATIONAL TOURS!!
Just as always, every Saturday and Sunday during the month of March, Farmer Paul and Farmer Kathy open up their sugarhouse to the community to learn all things maple. We start with the history of maple including the discovery and impacts on families up through the industrial revolution. We then talk about the trees, how the sap flows, what makes a good flow day and why. We cover the history of tapping and collection and how we do it today. We cover how the sap comes into the sugarhouse and makes it way to the evaporator. We cover extensively what happens in the evaporator with all the math and science. We then go over filtration, bottling and grading. We end with a primer on confections including making maple cream, maple candy and maple sugar.
Throughout the tour we give samples of maple sap from out of the tree, mid-boil (partially done syrup), finished syrup, maple cream, maple candy, maple sugar and more. The tours are great for all ages and we try hard to keep the attention of the little ones while making it interesting for the grown-ups. The tours are light-hearted with lots of bad jokes and banter by Farmer Paul and Farmer Kathy. Oh and did we mention that they were FREE!
Tours start at 9:00am and run about every 90 minutes, so roughly 10:30am, Noon, 1:30pm and 3:00pm. Show up anytime and if you miss the beginning of the current tour, no problem, go through the tour and then catch what you missed on the next tour.
When you arrive, park on the street. Please be respectful of our neighbors and don’t park in front of driveways or mailboxes. And please remember we are are opening up our home, so treat it as you would your own.