And Then There Was Syrup

Maple Syrup season 2021 was an incredibly unusual season.

Typically our season lasts 6-8 weeks with ebs and flows during that time. This year we only had three weeks of weather that was consistently favorable for syrup production (syrup production is HEAVILY dependent on a cold winter, moister frozen into the ground, daily thaws and nightly freezes). Less than three weeks into the season, day time temperatures started reaching 60-70 degrees, it stopped freezing at night, trees budded early and sap went bitter.

Along with a short season, the sugar content in our sap began around 0.5% lower than normal (which is quite a bit when sap typically averages only 2-4% sugar) which changed the types of syrup we were able to produce. As such we did not produce a single batch of golden delicate syrup this season. According to other sugar bushes in the area, we are not alone in seeing this phenomenon--and even a sugar bush who often can only produce golden syrup, produced 100% dark syrup this year.

I believe we can also blame this on a winter that was too warm overall with too little precipitation. All conditions unfavorable for syrup production.

We are thankful that despite these oddities we still outproduced our prior seasons, although we did fall short of our goals.

Along with a strange production season, we have also been adjusting to having two more members of the family (who thankfully are very keen to be involved in every step of syrup production) which has changed the way we have approached our processing some.

Because of that, we are now finding ourselves making our way through all of the post production processing including filtering, bottling and labeling (every single product we produce is hand bottled, labeled and packaged), and even further post processing to make bourbon aged syrup, sugar and cream.

We're at the point where we finally have product to offer!

At the bottom of this post you will find our 2021 product offerings (all first come first serve, because thank you friends, we are getting to be too popular to maintain significant wait lists).

At this point we do offer some shipping (reach out to us on Facebook Messenger if interested in exploring this more) and also offer on farm pick up, limited local delivery and have our first market coming up in just a few weeks-- which if you are able-- I highly recommend attending.

We will be one of 60+ local (to West Michigan) vendors and you will find anything from food (and delicious food trucks), clothing, personal care items, pet care items, flowers, home decorations and more.

Our entire list of product offerings can be seen below-- syrup is available at all times.

Bourbon syrup will be released after the first week of May (it is currently aging) and cream and sugar are produced in bathes with our next offerings being at Market on The Ridge!

Current Market Schedule:

May 14-15 Market on The Ridge

June 26 Berlin Farm and Flea Market (Berlin Raceway Marne, MI)

August 28 Berlin Farm and Flea Market (Berlin Raceway Marne, MI)

In addition to all of the things syrup--we are currently prepping garden beds, getting bee hives sorted and cleaned out and ready for pollen season, preparing for the arrival of baby goats from our pregnant ladies, hatching eggs (chicks/ducks) etc., and dealing with the unexpected passing of our yellow lab Macy, who has been with us for 12 wonderful years.