The Story of the Season

Crew member Ana writes:

Getting this long awaited dispatch was no easy feat; the only way to get my brain into work mode was with a hard deadline. Our sugar season could use a hard deadline as well. But as Lew says, “We will be waiting with bated breath.”

I found an old interview that I did back in 2018, and one of my quotes about why I love sugaring so much was “how repetitive yet soothing the work is.” Repetitive is definitely a way to describe our day to day during sugaring. But what has been different to my past years at the sugar house and yet ‘repetitive,’ has been the influx of visitors we get throughout the season. It has been such a pleasure to see so many people come through with enthusiasm and interest in what the process for maple syrup is.

The tourism that Nebraska Knoll inspires is a kind and loving one. People are respectful and curious, and with that curiosity comes hearing a lot of the same questions over and over, and the crew answering with the same “catchphrases” or answers over and over. Since we are all in the sugar house working together, we have a pretty good idea of what we are going to hear from fellow crew members when someone comes in. 

When a family or couple comes in, you can hear Freedle’s booming voice saying, “You’re here at the right place and the right time,” or, “Syrup never tastes better than right off the pan.” I can hear Lew standing by the finish tank asking if everyone has had a sample of fresh syrup, or coming up to me asking where Waldo (Freedle) is.

Audrey can be found welcoming visitors in the retail room and talking to everyone about where they’re visiting from, and coming to help with the boil and cleaning, dancing to ABBA and asking to play one of the albums from the extensive CD collection. Jenn can be heard over the boil talking about her artwork and different science experiments she wants to try with the natural minerals that come off the sap after boiling it (the sap sand might be turned into a pottery glaze!). 

We can all appreciate one another and all the roles we play in the sugaring process, and can all appreciate one another in hearing each other’s responses to the questions we hear day in and day out while boiling. 

Q Where does Nebraska Knoll Sugar Farm get its name?

A: Located in the Nebraska Valley, it is named after the valley. No correlation to the state, but there is speculation that maybe some early homesteader from Nebraska moved back to Stowe at one point. 

Q What do you add to the syrup to get its different grades/ does the boiling make it brown?

A:  Nothing is added to the sap to manipulate the color of the syrup. The color comes from caramelization of natural sugars in the sap. The grade spectrum comes from the type of sap we receive on that given day. Usually the colder the weather the lighter the syrup. The warmer the weather, the darker the syrup. 

Q: What is that white powder you are adding?

A: It is a diatomaceous earth. Though it looks like powdered sugar, “D.E.” is a filtering agent used to help remove the natural mineral impurities that reduce in the syrup through the boiling process. 

Q How much firewood do you go through?

A:  On long boiling days we can go through 2 cords of wood a day (what a household uses in an entire winter), and can burn about 20 to 30 cords a season. 

Q How many gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup?

A: Depending on the sugar content in the sap on that given day, it can range from 40 to 50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.

And our all-time favorite:

Q How long does it take from the tree to the finish pan?

A: Depending on sap flow, sugar content in the sap, and boiling efficiency, it can range from a couple of hours to a couple of days. A crew member from years past had come up with an off-the-cuff answer of 8 minutes. While too good to be true, it still comes up as a fun answer to give. 

And in answering these questions over and over, we have turned our visitors into syrup connoisseurs. Even though we are constantly repeating ourselves, sugar making is an amazing process and such an incredible gift from nature for all to experience. The fascination and childlike sense of wonder from everyone who visits never gets old. 

—Ana Lucia Fernandez