Syrupy Sweet

In recounting my recent trip to Vermont, I'd be remiss if I described only the cheese farms and left out the maple syrup farms. For 30-some years I've enjoyed--and, truthfully, kind of preferred--pancake syrup like Mrs. Butterworth's or Log Cabin. I knew that "pancake syrup" contains corn syrup and maple-like flavoring but no real maple component at all. But I didn't appreciate the difference between pancake syrup and the real deal until I toured a maple syrup farm.

True maple syrup is essentially organic. It's simply the result of boiling the sap of sugar maple trees. Nothing is added. An astounding 40 (forty!) gallons of sap are needed to make one gallon of maple syrup. During the sugaring season in Vermont (depending on temperatures, this runs from March to mid-April), a sugar maple tree will provide about 10 gallons of sap. Most trees are not tapped unless they are at least 40 years old. A 40-year old maple likely will have only one tap; larger trees could have two or even three taps. But overtapping depletes too much of the tree's sap.

So, it takes about four trees, 40-years or older, to produce one gallon of maple syrup. Sugarbush Farm has 6,000 maples on its 550 acres and has an intricate system of tubes (the Wrangler is holding onto one in the photo) for transporting the sap. "What do you think?" I asked the Wrangler last night. "Will 10 gallons of maple syrup a year be enough for us on the ranch? We'll need just 40 adult maple trees."

"Are you kidding?" the Wrangler asked, incredulously. He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a small bottle of Log Cabin pancake syrup. "We've had this since we moved in here over two years ago."

"That's true, but when we're making our own delicious maple syrup, we'll probably use it for so much more than just French toast, waffles, and pancakes. Remember what the lady at the maple syrup farm said." Our friendly tour guide, sounding not unlike Bubba in Forest Gump listing the various ways to prepare shrimp, touted maple syrup's many uses: you can put maple syrup on ice cream, you can put maple syrup in oatmeal, you can put maple syrup in yogurt, you can put maple syrup on your cereal, you can use maple syrup in cakes, pies, and cookies, you can put maple syrup in whipped cream, you can put maple syrup in your coffee and tea...

The Wrangler looked skeptical. "I don't really see us putting it on our cereal or eating a lot of yogurt and maple syrup concoctions. And I'm not putting it in my coffee."

"Well, maybe we can give some as gifts," I said hopefully. "Who wouldn't want our fresh, homemade maple syrup?" But the vision of the two of us happily stamping through snowdrifts and carrying buckets filled with sap from our 40 maples had already begun to dim.

Maybe we will just buy ours from the good folks in Vermont.

Like Bees to Honey

As the Great Cheese Farm Tour 2010 drew to a close, the Wrangler and I agreed that it had been one heck of a trip. Who knew we'd fall in love with Vermont? We didn't even make it to Maine. I might have shed a tear or two of happiness while driving through the billboard-free Vermont countryside and commiting to memory the views of red, orange, and yellow hills. Yes, the trees had begun to change color.

I accomplished one major feat on this trip: I got the Wrangler excited about bees. Our visit with Jenna at Cold Antler Farm gave us the opportunity to process wool from her sheep and help harvest fresh honey. Okay, I'm using the word "help" a bit loosely here. I "helped" by carrying the matches for the smoker device that is used to chase the bees out of the hive, and the Wrangler "helped" by looking for the crowbar-like tool that extracts the plastic honey-filled frames from the hive. (The tool was under a bale of hay upon which a proud chicken had just laid an egg.) Jenna's hive has 30,000 bees, and she's been stung only once. She removed two frames (there are 10 total) from the hive, put them in a bucket, and brought them into the kitchen. She placed a colander in the bottom of a large bowl and scraped the honey from the frames with a brush. It oozed into the colander, which removed the wax and, well, bee particles.

Vermont currently is awash in goldenrod, and the honey is the exact color of the goldenrod blooms--which makes perfect sense. There is nothing as sweet as fresh honey. Except for maybe fresh maple syrup. I'll get into that later.

Cheesy

And we're off. Sunset over the Pacific at take-off. Sunrise over the Atlantic at touch-down.

Saturday: Grafton Village Cheese, Vermont Country Store, Sugarbush Farm, Billings Farm.

Sunday: Three-Corner Field Farm, Cold Antler Farm, Consider Bardwell Farm.

We'll be seeing goat cheese farms, cow's milk cheese farms, sheep's milk cheese farms, and a water buffalo cheese farm, as well as a cheese factory that does not produce milk but buys its milk from Vermont farmers.

The Maine Event

I've finished the research, I've attended the seminars and conferences, I've gone on the haycations and done the dude ranch thing, I've completed the online classes, and I've read the books and blogs of other working stiffs who haven't quit their day jobs but are trying to piece together small farm or ranch operations. Now it's time for the next step. I've put together a whirlwind trip to see the not-so-simple life in action. We'll be hitting hotspots in Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and the New England-esque parts of upstate New York. We'll be stopping at Consider Bardwell Farm (which I first read about in Hay Fever) and the Beekman 1802 merchantile (of both the Fabulous Beekman Boys and Bucolic Plague fame). Most exciting for me is a planned visit with Jenna, the author of Made from Scratch, at her Cold Antler Farm. She has promised to give me the low-down on keeping sheep.

I've also planned tours of two farms in Woodstock, Vermont: Billings Farm and Museum (a working dairy farm with all kinds of activities, events, and programs for visitors) and Sugarbush Farm (a working cheese and maple syrup farm). I'm not exactly dragging the Wrangler kicking and screaming on this trip, but I'm throwing in a tee time for him, just for good measure.