New Year 2025 - January Update

Happy New Year! 

Yes, it is almost the end of January, but we wish all of you a fantastic 2025.  I apologize for the lack of postings over the past year, but some health challenges interrupted some of my routines.  Things have improved significantly, and we are back at it.

2024 was an amazing sugar season for us.  We made more syrup than we have ever made before, and we were essentially sold out again by June.  We had the opportunity to provide wedding favors for some friends and participated in the provincial conference and tour in July.  Along with 9 other local producers from our district we hosted over 250 maple producers from across the province, and I am optimistic for the maple industry in Ontario.

Part of our growth last year was installing a transfer pump in the pump house to move collected sap up to the sugar house via a pipeline eliminating the need for one of us (typically Jennifer) to collect and bring up 100 litres at a time. Thank you, James.  Overall, this reduced approximately 4 hours of labour per day!  Control for both the vacuum pump and the transfer pump is maintained by a Mountain Maple controller and includes sensors on the tank that automatically kick in to transfer sap up to the sugar house.  Woo Hoo!  

We also had a new addition to the trail team, please welcome Oliver the boxer.  Farley is teaching him the ropes the rules, and just how to keep the deer off the trails.  More on that as we get into 2025.​

What are we up to this year?  The objective is expansion.  Indeed, we looked at adding taps last year, but I didn’t get it done.  Now on with the show.  In November we began the expansion project, taking out spruce trees, diseased trees and preparing the route for running the mainline extension.  Don’t worry, the trees that are taken out are used for firewood, with the brush piled up and left to decompose in the bush, providing a beneficial contribution to the ecosystem.  Thank you, David and Dick, for the help in getting through the woods.  As of the end of January the pipeline route is just about complete, and ready for the support wire to be installed, followed by the mainline.  Next week we will begin hanging the lateral lines to the trees.​

Farley and Oliver have been a big help as we prepare for this season, and we walk the lines almost every day.  This is a good thing as we discovered a couple of trees that had fallen over on the original mainline, and several of the lateral lines that had been broken by deer running through them.  This is the first year we have had ​deer issues, but the team tells me they are on top of it.  I believe them, as they went out last night and ran the trails in the dark making sure the juvenile delinquent deer left the area.

With the help of my incredible wife, I promise to keep on top of the blogs this year!

How sweet it is! (Thanks J.G.)
Michael ​