I sat with Farmer Jim in the sugarhouse this afternoon as he supervised the boiling of what may be the last few gallons of this season’s maple syrup crop. I asked him to summarize the season. The short answer is that it wasn’t a very good year for maple sugaring at Howell Farm.

A mild winter was a big part of the problem. According to Farmer Jim, the sap in our maple trees began to run about three weeks earlier than usual, before the farm was ready to start collecting. A typical sugaring season in New Jersey may last about 8 weeks, so losing three of those weeks is a big loss.

The early start to the sugaring season has surprised syrup producers throughout the Northeast. Here’s a snippet from a recent article in the Boston Globe:

“We made syrup the earliest we’ve ever made syrup this year,’’ said Fisk, 23, a fifth generation producer who has been making maple syrup since he was 5. “This time of year, there should be three or four feet of snow, and it should be cold out and we shouldn’t even be thinking about making syrup for another couple weeks.’’

On the positive side for Howell Farm, once our trees were finally tapped, the weather was close to ideal. Sap flows the best when freezing nights are followed by warm days, and that’s pretty much what’s happened over the past several weeks.

Today, however, it’s 60 degrees, and the string of cold nights appears to be coming to an end. Once the nights stop freezing, the sap will cease running and the trees will begun to bud. And once there are buds on the trees, even a return of freezing nights won’t bring back the syruping season, because the sap takes on a bitter flavor.

Danielle Houghton, who overseas Howell Farm’s maple syrup bottling operation, believes this year’s final syrup output may tally about 20 gallons. During her first year of bottling in 2005, when the weather was just about perfect, Howell Farm bottled 60 gallons. An average year, Danielle says, is 45 gallons.

Blaze died on Friday, February 3, 2012 just a couple of months short of his 34th birthday.  He had been at Howell Farm since February 1985.  Blaze was an outstanding workhorse during his many years at the farm and was known to be both gentle and reliable.  He also had a real sense of humor and was renowned by those who worked with him for his antics.  Blaze may have had some old-style Morgan horse in his ancestry as well as other work breeds.  For many years he enjoyed his stall at the western end of the barn where he had a window that he used to see what was going on or to pose for photos with visitors. More recently he had a box stall in the barn and often came up to the chain in its front in order to meet visitors in the barn.

A brief video of the Surge milking machine in action:

Howell Farm's young oxen are now on training wheels.

A report from Farmer Rob:

Star and Stripe are pulling quite well now. Stripe is very responsive to verbal commands, but Star less so. This may be because Star is too dependent on the lead rope as a cue. We have been working on weaning him from that by doing some figure 8s around a couple pins in their paddock with the lead rope removed.

The cart was primarily to give us something to back up as it is hard to back up a dragging load. It also gives the calves a variable load so that, for example, it gets heavy for a few steps when they pull it through a ditch. It also pushes them downhill which gives them practice holding back a load.

Last week Star weighed in at 290, and Stripe at 345. The amounts were not much of a surprise, but I thought the differential would be greater because Stripe looks quite a bit bigger.

Today marked the beginning of maple sugaring season for school groups visiting Howell Farm.

The students worked through an entire sugaring circuit. They started off learning how to tap maple trees and set up sap collection buckets. Then they helped cut and split firewood that will be used to fuel the evaporator. In the sugar house, they saw the evaporator in action, and learned about the process of boiling 40 gallons of sap down to one gallon of syrup.

Finally, in the historic kitchen of the John Phillips House, the students learned what it takes to make pancakes -- from scratch. For their hard work, each student received a pancake, topped off with Howell Farm maple syrup.

The Howell Farm horse barn has a new roof. It was finished this week. Meanwhile, roofing work has begun on Howell Farm's historic John Phillips house.

Today is the first full day of boiling at the Howell Farm sugarhouse. About 400 gallons of maple sap have been harvested so far. Now begins the long process of evaporating 40 gallons of sap into one gallon of maple syrup.

According to Farmer Jim, the wood stove heating the sap burns at a temperature of at least 1200 degrees, and, with good firewood, several hundred degrees hotter than that.

Groundhog Bill didn't see his shadow today. This doesn't necessarily portend an early spring, however, as Groundhog Bill is a non-predicting groundhog.

Groundhog Day festivities were in full swing today, including a groundhog roping contest, groundhog-inspired food, and a groundhog creative arts contest. The following poem was penned by Howell Farm director Pete Watson:

Marmota monax, Seer of Seers,
has common names less glitzy
His word is held in trust by some
To me, it's whistlin' Dixie

In places where he hibernates
this celebrated squinter
Comes up to see his shadow fall
and cause a longer winter

In Punxsy he prognosticates
on February Second
While humans droll outside his hole
revere what he has reckoned

He's prone to sleep in Chesapeake
where Spring arrives with fishes
And Farmer Ed will shoot him dead
unless of course he misses

In Pensacola, Florida
his presence can't be rallied
The land is bare of shadows there
and winters are not tallied

On Moore's Creek Hill our rodent, Bill,
has never made predictions
Our weather comes from Ice Cream Jim
whose facts outshadow fictions

All in all, though tales recall
his legend, lore and wisdom
All that's for sure, is the allure
that Groundhog Day doth give him.



Postscript

Wuchak, Wojak, Ockguchaun
His names are quite prolific
To some he's Chuck or Gus or Phil
Don't eat him, he's horrific