Bramblings: The blush of early spring

By BECKY NELSON
By Becky Nelson

The springtime blush of pink and purple is on the hills around the farm. I can always tell when sap will stop flowing and things will start popping by looking at Mount Tug out my front window. The grays and browns of winter change to pinks and purples, and I know the buds are opening and the maple season is over. This was a disappointing maple season, as the season has ended early and we have made about half the syrup of a normal year. We are blessed that we will have enough syrup to fill our retail needs, but we don’t have any syrup to wholesale — a big hit to our bottom line right out of the gate in the “new” year.

I feel for smaller producers who no doubt had a disastrous season. Like last year, the early part of the season was much too cold for sap to run. The tease of extended weather forecasts showing perfect weather week on week was exciting, with temps in the forties in the daytimes and temps in the twenties at night, but the extended forecasts never really came to fruition. As soon as the too cold weather ended, the too warm weather began with many days stringing together with warm days and warm nights above freezing as well so the sap did not run. We can count the number of times we boiled sap on two hands, and they were not spectacular sap runs when they occurred. For those producers putting the long hours into preparing for a season that never happened, it is a disappointing, wallet busting and discouraging turn of events.

In response, maple prices may go up, though our prices are related to the Canadian price scene, and the Quebec producers sit on a backlog of reserves that artificially control the pricing structure. I imagine that some of the small backyard producers are okay, but the smaller middle size folks will need to charge more to try to defray some of the costs of time and money spent on the process. Making syrup is pricey venture. Supplies and equipment are expensive, and the amount of time it takes to tap trees and collect sap is huge.

Some reports from experts even a decade ago warned that just what is happening today was coming. Weather is predicted to be warmer much earlier in our traditional springtime than back when. Not only will this skew and perhaps limit the timelines and production of maple producers, but will mess up the traditional planting and harvest times of crop farmers. There is not much we can do about the weather, other than try to adapt and mitigate further harm to our environment, but it has set us on edge.

The very mild and dry March was a problem not only in the maple orchard, but in the winter scene. We supplement our diminished income in the winter with a snowplowing and sanding route, and we had absolutely no plowing or sanding the whole month. The double whammy to the checkbook caused by the mild weather is a tough pill to swallow following struggles caused by the pandemic and our efforts to weather the health scene storm.

Water under the bridge, as my Mom always said. Time to look forward. We have been scrambling to get the high tunnels prepped and planted, and just this week got some lettuce, spinach, beets, peas, beans, kale and radishes planted. Just three weeks from now we should be picking our first crops of springtime veggies, a full month earlier than our traditional harvest start, so that in itself is a good thing. We certainly could use some rain as we head into the outdoor planting season, but will adapt and plant as we can. We are also scrambling to get the apple trees pruned before bud burst, which looks to be earlier than ever, always a concern, as a late frost or freeze does not bode well for a good apple crop.

The life of a farmer is tough. We struggle when Mother Nature throws a curve ball or two at us, and when societal pressures make planning and profitability a problem. But, then we look up to those purple hills with the maples, cherries, willows and poplar showing their lovely flowers or at a small plant popping through the soil, or a daffodil or jonquil in full splendor, listen to the birds in the trees and see the turkeys strutting in their springtime splendor and remember why we do what we do. I hope you can find the same hope when you look up from your struggles.

Becky Nelson is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, New Hampshire. You can contact her through the farm page on Facebook and Instagram, visit the retail store or email her at [email protected].