It’s Maple time…Come check out our Sugar Shack!
One of The Lumberjack and I’s dreams for our farm was to have a sugar shack and make memories as a family making maple syrup. Last year that dream became a reality when we built our Rustic Sugar Shack. The Lumberjack, with the help of our family and friends, had the shack built in a month.
We started last year with a smaller evaporator that boiled down 17 gallons of sap an hour, meaning it took him over 2 hours to make one gallon of syrup. It typically takes 40 gallons of sap to make just 1 gallon of syrup.
We enjoyed the little evaporator, but I could see The Lumberjack was itching for one with more power by the end of the season. We decided we would do an upgrade and bought a LaPierre 2x8 this year. This model will boil 50 gallons of sap an hour, which will help tremendously to keep up with our sap flow.
Last year’s little evaporator
The Lumberjacks new evaporator
The dream of Maple Syrup started about seven years ago when Blake got the idea to tap trees by our house and do a backyard rigged operation. We had a tiny 30x30 in. flat pan over a woodstove we used that year we set up in our shed. The girls were very young, so we would play with them on blankets on the shed floor and make our first batches of maple syrup. The memories of that time we will cherish forever. That year was a great learning experience, and we were hooked.
So when we found our new property with Maples around it, we were excited we would accomplish our dream of hobby farming maple syrup.
Last year, sugaring turned into a neighborhood friend and family affair with the shack done. There is something about sugaring that makes people want to come together. It’s a fantastic hang-out spot to sit around the shack and visit. We have pancake breakfasts on the weekends and have guests come and learn all about the sugaring process. We don’t do this at all as a business. It is for the hobby and fellowship it brings to us all.
Follow our Instagram to feel like you are part of the sugaring process yourself!
