Every year, around this time we start to tap the sugar maple trees. The days start to get longer, it still freezes at night and it warms up during the day.
When I was little, we tapped trees up and down our street. They were all galvanized buckets and we collected it all by hand with 5-gallon buckets. We dumped the freshly harvested sap into a big collection tank on the back of my Dad's truck. Since we now have over 5,000 taps we no longer use any buckets. Everything is tapped in and connected with blue tubing. Which runs down at the bottom of the hill into big collection tanks. Dad and the boys go out each day and pump out the sap into the tank on the truck.... when there is a big run, he'll many times put a tank on the trailer too.
What started as a hobby has now become a big business. We produce so much more than maple syrup. Over the last few years, I worked on developing recipes for jams, cookie mixes, spice rub and maple barbeque sauce. Our country gift store is packed full of wonderful New England and Canadian made products (including spices, maple cream cookies, Stonewall Kitchen products, Vermont cheese and such) We also have a wide assortment of hard to find kitchenwares.
Come see what our store has to offer. We're so much more than just maple syrup! Our store is open seven days a week. Join us for tours of the sugar house and watch us making maple syrup, February and March on the weekends from 1-5 pm.
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