Knock, knock…An exciting 13 hours on the farm…

It was around 10 pm last Friday night at the farm and I was just getting ready to head home for an early night when we got the knock at the door. Now, a knock at the door after 9 pm is not normal in Westhampton. And it usually isn’t good, unless it’s a night owl coming to buy syrup! An owl, this was not. It was a friendly and observant passerby informing us that our cows were out! He and his family seemed eager to help us out, but since his son only had shorts on (in 20 degree weather!) and I figured my dad, Ed and I could handle it, I excused them. It turned out Ed was out for a rare night on the town, so it was just my dad and I.

With a bucket of grain, flashlight and halter in hand, we headed out into the darkness. With just the two of us, herding the entire group of heifers at once did not prove successful. So, we bribed them with grain in order to catch them, one at a time, and lead them back to the barnyard. Once capturing all but one of the escapees, who had gone out to the corn field, it was time to fix the fence so that we wouldn’t get another knock at the door. My dad walked the perimeter of the fence to see where it was shorting out, while I sat on the grain bucket in darkness, preventing the remaining heifers from escaping. It was sort of peaceful, listening to the coyotes howling in the distance, the cool wind blowing and the cows chewing their cud. They enjoyed my company and I enjoyed theirs. At last, as I was about frozen, my dad chased the last cow inside and got the electricity working in the fence. We headed back to the house to find out that it was 12:30 am!!

Fast forward 10 hours and there’s another knock at the door. Déjà vu?? Please, no. Not the heifers. We have too much to do. Surely they must’ve been too tired from the night’s escapades to be out again. Phew! It was a nice couple with their 1-year old son that had come to see the sugar house and cows. We followed the cow path from last night over to the sugar house, stopping first to see the heifers, who were now looking so cute and well-behaved, as if to say "...not ussss..!". One of the heifers reached to sniff us and got a little too close to the electric wire, which thankfully was working!! (Though granted, it would’ve been nice to have help this time!)

It was time to warm up in the sweet smelling sugar house, where Ed was busy tending to the evaporator and feeding the fire. (Or, as seen in this picture...ignoring the fire and evaporator!). I explained the process from collecting the sap down in the orchard (Rachel told you all about that) to boiling off the water until it’s time to take off the sweet syrup (we’ll fill you in on that later). We tried a sample of syrup and a piece of maple candy. Meanwhile, another family had stopped in to check things out, buy some syrup and see the cows. Their three year old was not at all wary of the cows. He looked like he would’ve lent a helping hand with the cow-roping the night before.

I led our 10 visitors over to the milking cow barn to the see the calves. I promised them a chance to see the adorable jersey calf, named Maple Kreme that was born just two days before. As you see in the picture, she was last seen running from the sugar house with syrup dripping from her mouth! (Tune in later for a story about my first Jersey calf, Maple Sugar- when I was 8!). After visiting briefly with the older calves in the hutches, we entered the barn, walked through the hospital and that’s when I saw them. Uh oh!! My dad and Nelson were standing behind a cow tied in one of the pens. What were they doing? Was the cow sick? Do I want my guests to see it? I crept ahead and realized that the cow in question was calving, or at least trying. She hadn’t been getting anywhere on her own all morning, so they had to give her a hand, or rather four hands. My visitors snuck down the aisle by her with their hands covering their faces, as if watching a scary movie. As the cow pushed, my dad and Nelson pulled on the calf’s legs in sync. After a brief visit with cute little Maple Kreme and a few struggles in keeping their 3-yr old from tracking through the manure, the larger group decided they weren’t quite ready for a cow birth on their first visit to the farm. They must’ve missed that Dirty Jobs episode.

My initial visitors however were in it for the long haul. I warned them that it isn’t always a happy ending when a cow has trouble calving. We could see that this calf was coming out
backwards, hind legs first. They told stories of how it took 4 days of labor to bring their son into the world. Mom could relate to the cow’s pain and excitement for it to be over. At last, my dad caught the 100 lb baby as Nelson pulled one last time. My visitors cheered quietly, as I told them that the calf was alive and well. My dad carried the calf up to the front of the cow who immediately started licking her newborn enthusiastically. After all of that hard work, we were rewarded with a heifer (female) calf, who will herself become part of the milking herd in two years.

We headed back to the sugar house so that my now-very-excited friends could buy some syrup for themselves and their friends from central Mass. 80lb of it!! After 2 ½ hours, I think dad, who had successfully packed all that syrup was ready to drive home. Mom and her son, meanwhile could’ve spent the entire day on the farm. I promised them that they could come back any time to visit the cows and spend time outdoors on the farm.

As they drove off, I waved goodbye. For a second, I reflected on the excitement of the last 13 hours…chasing cows in the dark, a new baby calf born and new friends full of memories on the farm. I headed in for a quick bite to eat. Another knock at the door! 1:30 pm…time to collect sap!

The Maple Diet

Those of you who know them probably understand that there is a distinctive Parsons look: it's spare, lean and rather contemplative. But mostly spare. You may be able to discern a little family resemblance here:

That was a while ago, granted (Henry and Ed, the current farm owners, are second and fifth from left respectively). But while there may be a few more gray hairs now, the basic physique remains the same.

My family doesn't have that kind of look. I used to think this was some kind of genetic thing that couldn't be helped, but now I've come to realize that the Parsons' popular, hungry look can be yours and mine too, if we just work at it. And by work, I mean work. All. Day. No stopping. Hard. Because that's what these Parsons do. And I think that's their trick. Really, there's only so much weight you can gain when you milk morning and afternoon, and collect sap all the waking hours in between.

Because gathering maple sap definitely helps. Prior to the last few weeks, I had attended one pilates class in my life (plus a few sessions on home vcr, but that doesn't really count). It was hard. We had to assume contorted poses for far too long, all for the sake of establishing better core muscles. The instructor assuredly told me I would have NDMD, next day muscle disorder. I didn't really though; I was a little sore, but nothing much. The Monday after a weekend lifting sap buckets, however, was a different story!! My muscles were sore all over, but mostly around the butt and thighs, which I took to be a good thing.

So that's the maple diet, or plan, we recommend. During the season, haul as many five gallon pails as you can for several hours at a time. (Ethan, obviously another Parsons, demonstrates right.) Take very little time off. Guaranteed to get you in shape! If you don't have any sap handy, we can provide you with some to lift! (During the off-season, you may have to substitute tossing hay bales, but it should keep you ready for next year.)

I did read about another maple diet though. Or at least one that features maple fairly prominently: the lemon cleanse. Apparently, if you subsist on lemon juice, maple syrup and spices for 10 days, this will cleanse you well. I have to admit to a little skepticism, but I cannot speak from experience on this. I suppose after 10 days of intaking very little I would feel cleansed, in a manner of speaking. And hungry. If anyone has tried it, let us know!


This weekend I spent a little more time on the inside of the sugar house, but some not-terribly-good photos is all I got for now. Rustic, eh?

A taste of boiling to come ...

We've made a few references to the fact that Ed has been kept pretty busy already this year with the boiling. Boiling maple syrup is a complex process, and we'll have an entry on it soon. But it's as important to describe the feel of this as it is the mechanics. Here's what the sugar house looks like from the outside:It's a small, compact building; it looks like your olde worlde cottage in the woods, the sort of cozy, nostalgic country shack where good things are made. It billows steam through the vented hatchways that are opened during boiling, and smoke rises from the chimney. Whatever the weather and however cold you're feeling, you just know it's going to be warm inside. You're right: it's good and steamy in there. The interior is no frills, just the necessary equipment, but you don't need much extravagance when what you're doing has brilliant simplicity: you're creating this luscious, wonderful sweetness from something you just extracted from trees--and there isn't much more basic than a tree--that morning. I love the idea of distilling a natural, renewable product into something edible and delicious (and possibly even nutritious!). And the warm maple syrup to sample there is a small slice of heaven: I don't know why it should be better than regular syrup heated up in the kitchen, but it is.

So that's the picture. When there's more time and more photos we'll get back to the mechanics of it all!

All Things Sappy

Another week, another mountain of sap to collect! With Friday and Saturday's high temperatures, we were pretty sure there would be a good haul this weekend. We were right: the buckets hung heavy, laden with good, clear sap. So our intrepid crew of four (Ethan, Margie, Kate & Rachel) set off to the orchard at the crack of 10 a.m. Here is the scene that greeted us:

It’s kind of like the duck-rabbit illusion: one moment it appears to be a beautiful, country orchard, bathed in sunshine and promising luscious sap, the next it mutates to the inner rings of Dante’s inferno, a never-ending expanse of buckets, each heavy with back-breaking sap.

Because it is pretty heavy work. You’re not paying for nothing when you buy maple syrup (not ours, anyway). Understanding the process is not rocket science; it goes something like this. Walk to tree, carrying two five gallon pails. (Or, today, schlep through thick-but-soft snow to tree.) Remove bucket from tree. Empty sap. Curse as you try to replace bucket on spigot hook (the hooks are, I discovered, controlled by invisible goblins that delight in evading the bucket). Eventually replace bucket. Go on to next bucket. Empty sap. Curse. Eventually fill your two five gallon buckets with sap. Schlep back to tractor, hoping that Ethan or Kate (the tractor movers) has moved it right next to you. Find they haven’t. Make it back to the tractor anyway. Hoist bucket to empty sap into tank behind tractor (good for shoulder muscles). Repeat all steps.

Or, in pictures: Margie and Ethan gather sap, strangely happy.

Traditionalists, we still use horses to pull the tanks of sap. Here, you can see we have 80 in the front and 85 in the rear!

We weren't alone in the orchard -- turkey track highway!

A close up of our tractor drivers. They're currently accepting sunglasses sponsorship applications for next season.

We gathered two full tanks in the morning, and another two in the afternoon. Sometime between the two shifts we gained reinforcements in the form of Ed and Matt. (Matt is a local who helps out on the farm some. Today he was recovering from the MPRE, which is the multi-state professional responsibility exam for lawyers. I just wanted to throw that in to show that lawyers really do have professional responsibility. Or at least we have exams on it.) In the meantime, I snuck out on a quick road bike ride. Ed and Matt were clearly better helpers than me, as the afternoon sap was gathered in about half the time of the morning’s! So sadly, when I got back from riding, there was no more work to be done.

There was a little unloading, however, so we set to that. Or at least Ethan set to, while Matt regaled me and Kate with tales of his misspent youth. I’d elaborate on the details, but this is a family blog. Let's just say his high school wasn’t happy with him. It was all so distracting that we all missed tank overflow, and had to rush to assemble buckets to recover as much as we could of the day’s labors! You can't really see the sap cascade down, but you can see Ethan and Kate arranging buckets while Matt, the likely cause of the catastrophe, looks on malevolently :) (You’ll be relieved to know that not too much was lost.)

So there ended a day's work. Don't worry, there will soon be more enthralling tales from the maple side of life. For after sap collecting comes ... the boiling! (Wot no maple syrup?)

First run

Sunny and beautiful Saturday but quite chilly.We had thought to have sap to gather, but not to be. There may have been sap running Friday from trees that are more in the open, but our orchard is sheltered from the sun and bounded by the icy cold river. And the snow is deep - as Rachel found out last weekend! Kate and Margie hiked down to the orchard late in the day and found that the sap had decided to run, with quite a bit in the buckets on the sunnier side of the orchard, so plans were made to gather on Sunday.

Ed has been busy getting everything ready in the sugar house and is anxious to get started, now that Mother Nature is ready to cooperate. This will be his first season boiling the sap on his own, as his Dad passed away in the summer. But he had a good teacher and will be producing the same high quality syrup the Parsons have been famous for for many years.

A cold night Saturday made the first sap run a bit of a challenge, as, at first glance, it appeared the sap was frozen solid. But after Kate called her Dad back at the barn for advice (what did we ever do without cell phones!), she developed an effective technique. Using a sharp stick, she punched 2-3 holes through the ice to allow the sap underneath to flow out into her gathering pail. Then she was able to dump the ice on the ground, re-hang the bucket, and move on to the next of the 1200 buckets. After 4 1/2 hours, Kate, Margie, Henry, Ed and Ethan(who arrived from Boston at midnight Saturday to help) had collected all the sap, about 20 barrels. ( A barrel is 42 gallons and it takes nearly one barrel to make one gallon of sap.) Today (or tomorrow, since the weatherman was right and we really got 10 inches of snow!), Ed will lay a fire in the arch and set that sap to cooking. It takes several hours of boiling for the sap to reach the proper temperature to draw off as syrup. This is a bit of an art, and we know Ed is up to the task.

So stop by, or shop on line, to get some of our first run syrup - there's nothing quite like it!