2022 Sugar Season is Here!

We’ve made some expansions here on the farm in the last year. We completed an addition on our sugar house, and we’ve welcomed a third generation sugarer to our family! Maeve was born April 19th to Wheeler and Michael. We were scurrying to ship out cases of syrup last spring in the weeks before she was born. We could go on and on about the joy this sweet girl brings us, but we will stick to topic and tell about our farm news.

The expansion of the sugar house was completed last summer. Many thanks to Nate Gardiner for his prowess in the construction of the new addition. Nate and Michael built a 224 square foot addition to the back of the sugar house creating a storage room, a heated room for the new reverse osmosis machine, and expanded roof and platform area sheltering the 340 gallon tank that feeds the evaporator.

The addition of the reverse osmosis (RO) machine is the last major tool we will need in our bag of tricks making maple syrup. The RO machine is a filtration system that removes a quotient of pure water from the sap, leaving us with higher sugar content in the sap before we even begin to boil. It reduces our carbon footprint by more than half (yay! for less firewood), it speeds our boiling time and makes it possible to expand the number of trees we can tap in the future. This is a standard piece of equipment on large maple farms, and something we have had our eye on for the past 10 years. It’s a big win for us in the sugar house!

Wheeler and Michael, with the help of Mallory Michael, began tapping the trees on January 27th this year. There was still a frozen crust of snow when we began, and we took advantage of that by putting crampons on our boots and tackled the steepest sections of the forest. The crampons plus hard snow made for great traction in the steep ravines. We got through more than half of the taps on the first day, but then we were pressed indoors by snow and a deep freeze for a few days, and wrapped up tapping when temperatures warmed with the help of Thomas Carlson who flew in from Oklahoma to help us kick off the season. Thanks Mallory and Thomas for tromping around in the woods with us!

This past week we made our first syrup of the season. It is light, golden and delicious! The earliest syrup is always the lightest in color, and most delicate and mild in flavor. As the season progresses, the syrup darkens and the flavors become more complex and maple-y.

If you are interested in purchasing syrup this year, then you should subscribe to our newsletter. Subscribers will get first dibs on syrup when its available. We will have three release dates for syrup TBA in the newsletter this year. Don’t miss out! The syrup goes fast.

Season's End and Hard Cider Collaboration with Molley Chomper (Copy)

Michael and Doug bottling syrup.

The 2021 maple syrup season at Waterfall Farm came to an end on a spring like day on March 10th. The syrup on the last day was so rich and sweet we were afraid it might awaken the bears from hibernation. If they had gotten a whiff wafting up the mountain they might have torn the doors off the sugar house to get at it.

The season began on January 27th during a brief thaw where the snow melted allowing our merry band of tappers to get out there and tap the trees. As soon the trees were tapped the temperature dropped like a rock and it began to snow. The world remained frozen and we didn’t see any sap until February 5th when the temperature squeaked up into the 40s for a few hours and gave us enough sap to “sweeten the pan”, but not a drop more. Then we had to hurry up and wait until February 9th when temperatures began to cycle between freezing and thawing and the maples’ sap cut loose from the trees at such regular intervals that we were boiling nearly every day. From there it was a race to the finish on March 10th when we had our final boil- our season ended by an extended forecast of spring-warm temperatures with no freezing in sight.

Red maple blooming.

Mother nature pulls all the strings of winter and this year she showed off all her most intricate moves. This was the coldest winter that we’ve had in a number of years, and you may have noticed that the flowers and new green of spring have been late to show themselves this year. If you pay attention in early spring, you will see that red maples are among the first native trees to bloom, offering a red blush dappling the landscape. The bloom time of the red maples is dictated not by a single warm stretch, but by the cumulation of warm and cold days throughout winter. We stacked a lot of cold days this winter, and this is why the bloom was late. In recent years, our season has ended because the red maples bloom, so it was a new twist this year to find our finally in simple warm weather with no blooms around to speak of. Blooming trees are a season-ender because the blooms cause the chemistry of the sap to change yielding off flavor syrup. This year, our season was ended by warm weather simply because that warmth will sour the sap in our lines.

We truly appreciate all of the enthusiastic interest in our syrup, as well as the warm wishes and kind words that you all have showered up on us this season. A lot of you are new to us this year having found us through the October 2020 issue of Our State magazine. Welcome!! We are a small family farm, quietly tucked away on the side of a mountain, and it’s a privilege to share our syrup and our story with you.

Thanks for your patience and for following along with our somewhat awkward system of reserving syrup by the case. This was our first year offering syrup in this way, and we were caught off guard by the landslide of interest that came our way. We are already refining our system so that we can offer a smoother, more straightforward experience for purchasing syrup next year.

At this point, we are officially sold out of syrup.

Over the last several weeks we have been connecting directly with customers who have reserved syrup by the case, and have been doing so in the order that reservations were made. If you have not heard from us yet then I am sorry to say that we will not be able to fill your reservation or waitlist request. We wish we had enough syrup for all of you but make a limited amount of syrup each year. If you hope to get your hands on syrup next year then stick with our newsletter. This is our primary contact point for sharing information about syrup availability and farm updates.

It was a great year to make syrup in spite of Covid19. We missed having visitors but look forward to seeing some of you in the sugar house in 2022.

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If you would like another way to experience Waterfall Farm maple syrup and explore the North Carolina mountains then take note!

Just a few miles down the road from our farm in Lansing, NC is one of Ashe County’s gems, Molley Chomper- an award winning cidery that hand crafts scrumptious, delicious hard ciders featuring local heirloom apples and showcasing special collaborations with farms in our area. They take the sweetness of spring, the irrepressible high of summer in the mountains, the sharpness and spice of autumn, and the heat of a fire in winter, and somehow manage to put it all in a bottle. For two years now, they have been making a special barrel aged cider with our syrup called Waterfall Farm Maple. It is a blend of late-season apples including York, Stayman Winesap, and Rome. Post-fermentation, they rack the cider in oak barrels and top them weekly over three months with Waterfall Farm maple syrup. This gentle secondary fermentation transforms the maple syrup yielding a rich, sub-acid and near-dry cider with notes of oak, vanilla, and baked apple. You can drink it right away, or it will age well if saved for a cold winter night.  This is a dry cider, and the addition of sugar from the syrup in the secondary fermentation bumps this cider to 10% abv which technically makes this an apple wine rather than a cider.

Molley Chomper features other delectable farm collaborations to explore such as Old Orchard Creek Blueberry, Carpenter Hill Raspberry, and Honey Lavender to name a few. They also have more traditional hard ciders that are endlessly delicious and smooth such as Mountain Maelstrom and Bent Apple.

If you’re in the area and spoiling for adventure, you can visit their taproom and enjoy a socially distanced beverage fireside on their covered patio, or visit one of their many stockists throughout North Carolina. If you’re stuck at home and spoiling for adventure, fear not, they ship!

Mid Season Update

After a deep freeze during the first nine days of February, winter decided to take a break. The trees began to wake up, stretch their limbs and the sap began to flow. Just a little at first, but finally on Saturday the 13th the temperature climbed to 50 degrees and the sap began to pour. From the 9th to the 16th we collected about 2400 gallons of sap and boiled off 40 gallons of that precious North Carolina Maple syrup.

From the 18th to present, winter has returned from it’s vacation and we’re frozen in again. It looks like the next big run will begin early this week, and then its anybody’s guess after that. March is a wild card. The trees have been frozen for the most part since Christmas, which holds them back from budding out. That portends a longer season but sap flow requires freezing and thawing to trigger sap flows. So we’re hoping Punxsutawny Phil is right and we have another month of winter with lots of freezing and thawing and, oh yea, lots of snow.

We’ve been so busy with our farm duties and boiling syrup that we have not yet started to ship out syrup or schedule pick ups. We will begin working our way through the syrup reservation and waitlists as soon as we are able. Thanks so much for your patience!! We are a trove of optimists and every year we underestimate the time demands of sugar season. When your name hits the top of our list we will email you directly to parse out details of shipment or pick ups, and payment. Due to the unpredictability of our schedule during sugar season we will not be able to schedule any pick ups until after our boiling season concludes in mid March. We hope to have shipments on the move a little sooner. All reservations will be held in the order that we originally received them regardless of wether they will be shipped or held for a later pick up. If you arrange for a pick up at a later date, you will not lose your place in line.

Please, NO drop-ins. This farm is also our home, and we appreciate your respect for our privacy.

The trees are tapped!!

On a sunny, warm winter day, 564 taps went into the sugar and red maple trees as the sap flowed from them here at Waterfall Farm. By that evening, clouds moved in, the temperature dropped below freezing, it began to snow, and the sap run was over. About 200 gallons of sap had collected in the tanks, which is not quite enough sap to fire the evaporator and get started boiling. This is because it takes about 300 gallons of sap to “sweeten the pan,” which is the point at which we have fresh sap coming in one end of the evaporator as finished syrup is coming out the other end.  The cold weather ahead of us will refrigerate and even freeze the sap we have on hand, keeping it fresh until our next sap run. Once the pan is “sweetened” at our first boil, it will remain so for the rest of the season and will be ready to make syrup every day that the sap “runs,” regardless of how much sap comes in.

Did you know that sap, as it comes from the tree, only contains 1.5% sugar and 98.5% water? All of that water has to be boiled off to get to the sugar. Finished maple syrup has a sugar content of 66%. That’s a lot of boiling!

The sap flows or “runs” during a thaw which occurs when the temperature rises above 32° F. When the temperature drops below 32°F the run stops. If the temperature warms up quickly from a freeze into the 40s or 50s, the sap pours out of the trees at which point we get a big “run” and we can collect over a thousand gallons of sap in just one day! That’s when we really get busy making syrup.

Making syrup is totally dependent on the weather. Freeze and thaw cycles from late January through early March trigger the flow of sap from the trees. Right about now, trees are “waking up” as the days get longer, and this is the time their sap is good for making syrup. But by mid March, the trees’ leaf buds and flower buds are beginning to swell, and the chemistry of sap is changing to deliver nutrients to those parts of the tree. When the buds break in early spring, that marks the end of our sugar season, as the sap is no longer suitable for making syrup. The sap will still run, but the syrup that comes from it is no longer palatable.  This explanation is an oversimplification of what is happening with the trees, but you get the idea.

So, as of January 30th, we’re waiting for the next thaw. Right now the forecast is for cold and snow for the next four days, so we’ll twiddle our thumbs ‘til then and see what happens next. We’ll keep you posted.

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Due to a landslide of interest in reservations for syrup by the case, we have reached the point where we are no longer certain if we can meet all the demand. This is farming, after all, and we don't want to over-promise on our projected syrup production for the year. For this reason, you can now join our wait list for syrup by the case. We hope to make enough that we will still be able to put a case in your hands.

If you join our waitlist for one or more cases of syrup, we will be in touch with you directly as the season progresses. We will fill reservations in the order that we receive them. If/when your syrup is ready, we will arrange payment and discuss whether you’d like to make an appointment to pick it up in person or have it shipped to you. A case of twelve 8 oz bottles is $144.

Pick-ups will be by appointment ONLY, and all comers must wear masks and practice social distancing while at the farm.

Please, NO drop-ins. This farm is also our home, and we appreciate your respect for our privacy.

Greetings from Waterfall Farm

We would like to extend a warm welcome to you, and offer our hearty thanks for your interest in our small family farm.

The 2021 maple season is about to begin! We will have about 570 taps this year which doesn’t mean we will be tapping 570 trees. Some tress, the bigger ones, have two taps. Our plan is to tap on Wednesday, January 27th. There is heavy snow cover in the woods right now but we’re hoping to get a serious thaw and melt on Tuesday the 26th when the temperature is forecast to rise into the upper 50s. When the world thaws, the sap runs. The thaw will also make for better footing on the steep slopes and speed up tapping. After that, it’s wait and see. Snow is forecast for Wednesday night and Thursday, but we might see a little sap flow on Friday if the temperature gets up into the 40s. We’ll keep you posted. Once the trees are tapped, we make no plans outside of sugaring, and live at the mercy of the weather as it dictates when the sap will flow, and thus when we boil. We expect many sap runs and boils during our 4 -6 week sap season as they follow the rise and fall of temperature.

We had hoped to have visitors in the sugar house during the actual production of the syrup this year, and share the wondrous experience of fire, steam, sap and syrup with you, but have had to cancel those plans due to the Covid19 pandemic. Our sugar house is too close of quarters to allow for safe social distancing. Once we start making syrup, it can still be picked up at the farm by appointment, but no in-house tours will be given.

As we have not yet tapped the trees, we do not yet have syrup to sell. However, this is the time of year when we take reservations for syrup by the case. Customers who reserve syrup by the case get first priority when we start making syrup. If you would like to reserve one or more cases of syrup, please email us and let us know how many cases of syrup you'd like to reserve and we'll contact you as soon as your syrup is made. We will arrange payment when your syrup is ready. A case of twelve 8 oz bottles is $144. Syrup can be picked up in person at the farm, or mailed to you.

Pick-ups will be by appointment ONLY, and all comers must wear masks and practice social distancing while at the farm.

Please, NO drop-ins. This farm is also our home, and we appreciate your respect for our privacy.

We will continue to update you on syrup availability as the season progresses. Once our season is underway, we will also have syrup available both by the case and by the bottle. And YES! We ship!

We look forward to sharing a great sugar season with you.
- Michael, Wheeler and Doug