We sold out of our 2023 Maple Syrup at the Molly Chomper event.
There will be no online sale.
Well folks, we are blown sideways by your turnout at Molly Chomper yesterday. Sending our warmest thanks and appreciation to all of you for taking the time to come see us and buy our maple syrup! Many of you were local, and many of your drove hours to be with us. We are humbled by your enthusiastic support.
We spend a great deal of time by ourselves out here on the farm, working at all the different tasks involved to produce maple syrup.
There’s a great deal of time spent in the woods running and repairing sap lines, and tapping and untapping trees. Our farm is on a steep, north facing slope of Three Top Mountain, and we often wear metal cleats on our boots to better grip the slippery soil under the loose leaf litter of our steepest ravines when out maintaining our sugar bush. When our feet start to slide from under us and the ground is rapidly approaching, it’s safest not to fight it, but instead accept gravity’s pull in trade for a softer landing. We fondly call these moments of prostration “being one with the ground”.
There’s a lot of time spent with earmuffs on to block out the high decibel drones of chainsaws, wood splitters, pumps, fans and the tractor. We call this muffled state the “sound cloud”. It creates a space of mental privacy to take a long ramble through your own thoughts.
The many cords of firewood needed to run our wood-fired evaporator present their own meditation. Summer’s the time to buck logs and split rounds into pieces no bigger than your forearm. It’s a repetitive process that seems to go on, and on. Doug’s method is slow and steady. He cuts, splits and stacks a tractor bucket per day. No more, no less. It gets done in good time.
In these abundant moments at Waterfall Farm, being one with the ground, wandering through the sound cloud, or stacking piece after piece of firewood, it’s easy to forget that all this work boils down to a bottle of maple syrup on your table, dear reader. We love our work and feel lucky to dot it. Seeing your faces and sending our syrup home with all of you was a fabulous counterpoint to all of the time we spend working on our own here at the farm. It is a gift for us to share our syrup and our experiences with all of you. Thanks again!
-Doug, Wheeler and Michael