Our History
How It Began...
I was bitten by the maple-bug when I was eight years old. I can remember helping my Dad tap trees with a hand-drill and mason jars to collect the sap. I remember riding the school bus and how excited I would get when I could see how full the jars were. We'd collect the sap in pails and have my mother boil it on the kitchen stove. We used to have twelve taps that would make enough syrup for our family. In the late 1960's we began to boil outside and in the 70's I ran my first tubing and main-line with sixty taps. In the 1980's, I sold the sap to a local sugarhouse and helped them make syrup.
In 2006 my son and I decided to try making our own maple syrup. We tapped forty trees and boiled on an old wood stove in the backyard. That year we made 3 gallos of syrup. That fall we built our own sugarhouse and bought a new evaporator.
The season of 2007 we had 400 taps and spent many hours boiling and finishing the season with 76 gallons. The season brought us the 3rd generation of sugarmakers with the birth of Hunter Michael.
We enjoyed boiling so much that we decided to upgrade and bought a new leader 2 1/2 by 8 wood-fired with a max flue pan and revolution syrup pan. With this new evaporator it made the 2008 season by far the best year. We had our first open house bringing in 76 people. We now have 600 taps and made 156 gallons of maple syrup. Our evaporation rate went up to 80 gallons per hour. We will be adding an enhanced steam-away to our operation which will bring our evaporation rate up to 140 gallons per hour for the 2009 season.
