BRIEF LABEL: Bramblings 

Maple Curveball 

By Becky Nelson 

Bramblings 

Some of us in snow-dependent industries have been clamoring for an old-fashioned winter, and now that it’s here, we’re already a bit fatigued by the cold and snow. As a kid, I remember snowdrifts that blocked the view of passing cars and snow-fun that rivaled any summertime recreation. As a teen, I don’t remember much, as everything was about me. As a young adult, I remember lots of beautiful snow blanketing all the New Hampshire ski areas as we skied our way across the Granite State and snowmobiled our way all over Sullivan County. As an older adult, I remember scrambling on snow days to find someone to watch the young’uns as we toiled to make a dollar despite the snow and ice. It’s funny how memories play tricks on you. I’m sure there was nowhere near as much snow as I remember. 

This year we feel encouraged and blessed by the snow. I watched the snow-devils swirl around in the wind earlier in the week and thought it has been a long time since we’ve had this sort of winter. We haven’t needed to use the snowmobiles in the woods at all for three or four years, so it feels good to be breaking trails in the maple orchard as we gather ourselves for maple tubing repairs and tapping of the trees. The super-cold weather is also a blessing, as it has delayed the need to be all tapped out and waiting for a sap run. We are behind in getting the woods-work done, having spent most of our winter preparing the new maple evaporator, reverse osmosis and vacuum system equipment for what we hope is a great maple season. We are now lining up the woods crew to “hit the woods” next week during school vacation so that our son, a teacher and a couple of student employees, can help us tap trees. 

We are hoping the super-cold weather has put the maples into a deep sleep and the season will be a little bit more like an old-fashioned maple season, just as the weather has been so far in February. We started boiling sap in the third week of February last year, being all tapped-in by Valentine’s Day. It was the earliest we had every boiled sap, and the season just-sort-of-limped through, with lackluster production. Cold. Snow. New equipment. We are getting ready. 

Mother Nature has a habit of throwing a bunch of curveballs just when we are feeling confident and complacent, and we are trying to be prepared for these challenges with the new maple equipment. It will allow us time and efficiency, more than anything else. We have fewer people in the production end of maple, and more efficient boil-time is essential. We will be boiling with wood fire, just as we did with the 40-year old arch, but the design is much more energy efficient, burning less wood and releasing fewer emissions, making us feel good about time saved cutting wood and being more eco-friendly in the process.  

As written in the last Bramblings, we are still waiting to hear from the USDA for their contracted grant funds to help us pay for the equipment. The more days tick by, the less hopeful we are that the government will hold up their end of the deal which will leave us with some difficult decisions about the future financial standing of the farm, but we remain hopeful. Farmers are a resilient bunch, we have a solid and caring army of friends, customers and supporters, hopefully a friendly banker if we need a loan, and we have strong backs and a passion for the land that will carry us through what my 89-year-old uncle reassured me the other day is “just a bump in the road…” or a curveball. 

Curveballs. They can be scary, but once in a while you can recover from the first or second strike and launch one out of the park. I’m hopeful this is the case.