This was our third spring making maple syrup under the shadow of Covid. March and April seem to be a favoured time for the coronavirus, too, with a spring wave becoming a new routine, but we had managed to avoid…
The 2021 Maple Season: Hot, Dark, and Out of Control
When it comes to making maple syrup, temperature is king. First, there are the temperature fluctuations over the winter, which determine which kind of snow you have to walk through to get to the trees and tap them. This winter…
When Talking is Dangerous, at Least You Can Still Eat
Well, here we are, over five months since my last blog post, finally getting around to writing something about how the thick of our farming season went. I started this blog back in April, with the intention of providing much…
When Mother Nature hits the accellerator pedal
Last night I heard crickets for the first time this spring, and it struck me how fast the seasons shift in this part of the planet. It was just a few weeks ago we were waiting for the last of…
The boiling season
I used to get a feeling of dread descend on me as maple syrup season approached, fearing for what might go wrong, and for the workload. For farmers, winter is our time off, and maple season is a hard reimersion…