Maple-glazed ham, scalloped potatoes, spring greens from Long Winter Farm, and, hmmm, what about dessert for Easter dinner? Maple Trout Lilli writes with a suggestion: SISTER’S SALTED MAPLE PIE This recipe has been adapted from Sister Pie, a cookbook from a bakery of the same name in Detroit. It’s a bit fussy, but totally worth… Read More
Count the Pails
For a while, the pail resting here on the plank stores sap for brewing coffee with.This pail, or bucket, hangs from a maple tree named Maggie. Sap drips into it; it holds sap.This other pail is for collecting sap from the bucket and lugging it to the sap tank. A green hose for rinsing sap… Read More
The Week in Review
Chief of Operation writes: Notes from a couple of memorable days of sugaring during the final week of March. March 27/28 8pm, getting colder and the day’s sap run starting to peter out. 10pm, temp fallen to 28°, sap lines mostly frozen with hardly a trickle running into the extractor vessel. Today’s collection will go… Read More
The Post-It Wall
Chief of Operations writes: —LC BONUS submission from Chops:
Maple Spiced Popcorn
QUICK UPDATE: On the Popcorn Scale, weather that’s good for munching popcorn is a 10, and weather that’s suitable for non-popcorn pleasures – let’s say opening one gate valve and closing another, or hosing down a sap tank, or trotting up and down stairs to and from the sap shed to monitor the sap run… Read More
Finally we’re at it
WEATHER: What a week. Sudden heat and many warm nights dissolved the pristine winter of 2025. HOW’S IT RUNNING? Two night-and-day runs, March 14-17 and March 18-20 were separated by a freezing night on the 17th. A freeze today, the 21st, and a forecast of a series of moderate freeze-thaw cycles are just what we… Read More
Sugarhouse Pretzels with Maple Mustard
Some afternoons, neighbors stop by the sugarhouse with snacks or treats. When Maple Trout Lilli walks in we know the treat will be sublime – and something new to us since MTL is the Food Correspondent for the blog. She writes: Sugarhouse Pretzels with Maple Mustard These homemade, fresh, soft pretzels are buttery soft in… Read More
The Beauty Tour
QUICK UPDATE 3/13: It’s happening: thaw weather and sap runs. Today commences a multi-day thaw. We don’t relish the forecast of temps in the 50’s or 60’s with no freezing nights. It could be a year when all the sap comes at once. THE BEAUTY TOUR On tapping days and tubing-maintenance days the woods crew… Read More
Let it Run
WEATHER: Wednesday, March 5th brought an all-day drizzly rain. The temp rose from an overnight 32 degrees to 40 degrees and dropped back into the mid-30’s last night. Today, Thursday, the forecasted high is mid-40’s and the low tonight 20. HOW’S IT RUNNING? At 11am on Wednesday Freedle said, “The cold rain don’t cut it.”… Read More
Yankee Ingenuity: The Tubing Tool
Chief of Operations writes: Tool Rightness Both tools get the job done, though which is most efficient has become a matter of unresolved debate. The original that I have been using for forty years is still my favorite. It is made to push maple tubing onto barbed fittings, and seems to have been designed by… Read More
