Jonathan Gates reports from Howmars Farm in Franklin, Vermont. Howmars is a certified organic dairy farm, one of many Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative farmer members who supply the milk that goes into making Stonyfield's yogurts and smoothies. The entire family pitches in on this third-generation farm. Jonathan and his father, Howard, converted the farm from conventional dairy farming to organic 9 years ago. Meet Jonathan. He farms with his wife Karen, sons Benjamin, Justin, and Noah, and Jonathan's parents, Howard and Mary.
And, of course, the cows.
May 10, 2006
The last drips of the season captured at Howmars Farm
Buckets hang from the maple trees
near the farmhouse.
The sugaring season is long gone, but I wanted to just tell everyone how we made out this year. Considering the wacky winter we had leading up to the start of the season, we did really well. Not a record breaker, but not the worst by far, either.
After gathering for the first time on March 14, things froze up until the flood broke loose on March 24. From Saturday the 25th until Friday, the 31st, we gathered and boiled every day except Thursday. We could not have ordered a more perfect week of weather for maple sugaring. We made 100 gallons of mostly Fancy grade syrup during those seven days. It reminded me of the years when I was attending the University of Maine in Orono, and would come home for the two weeks of March break. We usually would tap the trees after I got home, and then sugaring would be called quits when I went back to school. I just want to say hi to Andy Bryan, a former UMO classmate living in Maine who sent in a hello to the Bovine Bugle awhile back.
Steam escapes from the "sugaring off" shack
on the Howmars property.
The last of the sap was boiled down
during the last week of March.
We did get another run of sap a few days after the 31st, but we knew the grade would not be good and we had all our cans filled, so we pulled buckets and spouts. A good year for Howmars Farm in the sugarbush.
The end results!
What Vermont is famous for--pure maple syrup.
For ten days this was the scene inside the sugarhouse. The evaporator pans sat idle, the storage tank was empty, the canning unit poised to handle the 219 degree syrup as it came off the arch. The only activity was my dad's daily hour-long visit to build a small fire in the arch to thaw out the frozen sap so that it would not freeze so hard that it would damage the soldered seams of the pans.
While we waited patiently for the sap to run, we caught up on things in the barn. Karen and I bedded the freestalls with fresh sawdust, making the girls nice and comfy. There is always at least one cow who will stand in a freshly bedded stall and paw out the sawdust with a front hoof. That drives me nuts, but I guess they just want to play.
Sometimes you'll see one with its face and head covered with sawdust, and you know that cow had just been rubbing its head in the pile of fresh bedding at the front of a stall. The maternity pens needed cleaning after the first round of calves since December. With the help of the boys, and a couple shovels, forks, and wheelbarrows, the pens were cleaned, bedded, and ready for the next expectant mothers in no time.
The forecast for the end of the week sounds promising, and we cling to the weatherperson's every word during the noontime and 6 o'clock telecasts. Little children are hushed, and whatever you are doing is stopped, as the forecast is given for the upcoming days. Will all the hard work done to this point be in vain, or will Mother Nature cooperate and give us those warm days and cold nights we need to make the sap flow in the sugar maples? Time will tell.
Today we started the 2006 sugaring season. The unseasonably warm weather has most of the sugarmakers in the state hustling to get their trees tapped. We decided that we might as well get going, so yesterday I went to Leader Evaporator, a maple sugaring supply outlet, and picked up some things. A new grading set, some tapping bits, and some new "health" spouts to try in the sugarbush were on the shopping list. And I also went just down the road from Leader to New England Container to pick up three cases of syrup cans to pack the syrup in.
This morning, after finishing the morning chores, we loaded the wagon with buckets, covers, spouts, hammers, a chainsaw, the battery-powered drill, and half-a-dozen kids, and headed to the woods. It was good going in the woods due to no snow cover at all. A far cry from the years when we had to use snowshoes to get around the trees while putting in the taps. We managed to put up about 300 buckets through the day before it was time to quit and do the afternoon milking. The sap was running a little from the freshly drilled holes. The kids did great helping out, and we had plenty of sap testers to taste the sweet stuff dripping off the spouts. Steve, Jill, Karen, and the kids, Ben, Justin, Brad, Emily, Maddy, and Noah, made a pretty good crew for the day.
Tomorrow we'll put out another 150 buckets to finish the tapping, then we'll take the sides off the wagon and set the gathering tub on the wagon deck in preparation for gathering the sap. Another couple of hours of work in the sugarhouse will have the sugar rig ready to go, and then we just have to wait for the sap to run!
Look for a "Moo-vie News" video of our team tapping the trees, here in The Bovine Bugle on Monday!
--Jonathan (left), Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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Mr. Woodpecker thinks it's time to tap the maples--sugaring season begins!
As I backed the loader tractor out of the Horsebarn this morning, I looked up the road and noticed something hanging from one of the maple trees lining the roadside. I drove the tractor under the overhanging branch and saw that it was a good-sized sapsicle. It had been warm enough for the sap in the maples to start running, and the sap had dripped off the branch. The conditions must have been just right to cause the sap drips to freeze and the sapsicle was formed. What was really interesting was what caused the opening in the branch allowing the sap to come out. A woodpecker had made a small hole in the branch, and the sap ran out of this break in the bark. So I guess Woody the Woodpecker tapped the first tree at Howmars Farm.
The weather looks promising for this weekend, and we will probably be tapping the hard maples and hanging our + 450 buckets. Getting around in the woods should be easy due to the lack of snow. No tapping on snowshoes this year. With a good crew, and good battery packs for the 19.2V drill, we should have most of the buckets up in one days time. Then in a couple of hours we'll have the gathering tub on the wagon, the dumping station hooked up that leads to the storage tank, and the sugar rig, or evaporator, put together and ready to make some delicious maple syrup.
It's always an exciting time of year on the farm. In a way, sugaring signals the end of winter and brings the promise of longer, warmer daylight hours and green pastures once again.
--Jonathan (left), Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
ABOUT THE BOVINE BUGLE Tune in Monday when we'll have more "Moo-vie" news from Jonathan's farm.
If you wish to subscribe, send an email with "Bovine Bugle" in the subject heading to chalvorson@stonyfield.com
Got a question for farmer Jonathan? Click here and we'll try to make sure your question gets answered.
Mr. Woodpecker thinks it's time to tap the maples--sugaring season begins!
As I backed the loader tractor out of the Horsebarn this morning, I looked up the road and noticed something hanging from one of the maple trees lining the roadside. I drove the tractor under the overhanging branch and saw that it was a good-sized sapsicle. It had been warm enough for the sap in the maples to start running, and the sap had dripped off the branch. The conditions must have been just right to cause the sap drips to freeze and the sapsicle was formed. What was really interesting was what caused the opening in the branch allowing the sap to come out. A woodpecker had made a small hole in the branch, and the sap ran out of this break in the bark. So I guess Woody the Woodpecker tapped the first tree at Howmars Farm.
The weather looks promising for this weekend, and we will probably be tapping the hard maples and hanging our + 450 buckets. Getting around in the woods should be easy due to the lack of snow. No tapping on snowshoes this year. With a good crew, and good battery packs for the 19.2V drill, we should have most of the buckets up in one days time. Then in a couple of hours we'll have the gathering tub on the wagon, the dumping station hooked up that leads to the storage tank, and the sugar rig, or evaporator, put together and ready to make some delicious maple syrup.
It's always an exciting time of year on the farm. In a way, sugaring signals the end of winter and brings the promise of longer, warmer daylight hours and green pastures once again.
--Jonathan (left), Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
ABOUT THE BOVINE BUGLE Tune in Monday when we'll have more "Moo-vie" news from Jonathan's farm.
If you wish to subscribe, send an email with "Bovine Bugle" in the subject heading to chalvorson@stonyfield.com
Got a question for farmer Jonathan? Click here and we'll try to make sure your question gets answered.
Moo-vie News: Tree chopping for maple sugaring in Vermont
In the homestate of Stonyfield Farm--New Hampshire--today marks the official start of "sugaring season"--the time of year when maple trees are tapped for their sap that will be turned into syrup. The sap starts "running" when days are warm, but nights are still cold--a process that varies considerably by location.
Vermont is also a big maple sugaring state and our farmer, Jonathan Gates, and his family spend a lot of March and April time boiling down the sap they've collected into wonderful sought-after syrup. Jonathan will be sending us news and videos from this year's seasonal activities soon. His labor already began back in January, when he spent some time clearing trees on his land. The trees will be chopped into firewood that will be used in the sap boiling process--next year. Here's Jonathan, with his trusty companion Yukon, taking advantage of a warmer-than-usual January day. Just press on the big arrow in the middle of the screen to play the moo-vie.
--Jonathan (left), Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
ABOUT THE BOVINE BUGLE Tune in Monday when we'll have more "Moo-vie" news from Jonathan's farm.
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The sweet sap run is slowing down in northern Vermont
A sap gathering bin goes out onto the muddy paths in search of buckets filling up.
The snow and the sugaring season are going fast. It has been a week since we gathered last, and the lingering question is do we leave the buckets up in case there is one last run or do we take them down and clean things up. After yesterday's sunny, warm 60+ degree weather, you wonder if it will get below freezing again.
From the last gathering we made 17 gallons of medium amber syrup, and this brings the season total to about 75 gallons. This is about 60% of the volume we should make based on the number of buckets we have out. Historically, for every 3 sap buckets, or "taps", we put out we usually make a gallon of syrup. With 425 buckets out, we should make 140 gallons or so of syrup.
The sap has been very sweet this year, with the average sugar content of the sap running about 3%. The higher the sugar content of the sap, the less sap it takes to make a gallon of syrup. We use a sap hydrometer to measure the sugar content of the sap. We fill a tall stainless steel cup with sap and float the hydrometer in the sap. The hydrometer is graduated, and we read the graduation at the top of the liquid. The sweetness of the sap from different areas of our sugarbush has ranged this year from 2.6% to 3.9%. The rockier areas tend to run lower, and the trees growing on deep soil tend to run higher in sweetness.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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Last Wednesday, Dad finished boiling in the sap that Karen, Steve, our nephew, Jason, and I had gathered. Dad and Ben boiled yesterday until the canning unit was full (it holds 15 gallons) and then they shut down the rig. We gathered almost 5 tubs of sap, and when they shut down, Dad probably had 200-250 gallons of sap left to boil in.
The canning unit is a stainless steel box with a spigot and thermometer built in. The box sits on a frame with a propane burner to use to keep the syrup at the proper temperature for canning, 185 degrees or higher. A moveable shelf on the front legs of the stand can be adjusted depending on what size can you are filling. We can gallons, half gallons, quarts, pints, and sometimes half pints. Today Dad put the 11 gallons he had just made into 44 quart cans. That brings the season's total to 56 gallons of syrup so far. It sounds like we may get a good freeze, and if it "comes off" right tomorrow we will have another good run.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
Got a question about maple sugaring? Drop Jonathan a line here, using the comment box below. He'll be sure to answer, when he's not out gathering sap or taking care of the cows.
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Setting out sap buckets and tapping trees is an extended family affair at Howmars Farm.
The weather conditions were perfect this past weekend for tapping the sugarbush (our stand of maple trees which supply us with sap). And, being the weekend, it meant we would have plenty of help. Ben finished getting the wagon ready, and then we loaded it with buckets, covers, a bucket of spouts, and snowshoes. On hand to help were my sister, Patty; my brother, Steve, and his wife, Jill; Emily, Hanna, Zach, and Maddy--my nieces and nephews; and my wife Karen and our boys. Patty's husband, Marty, was the tractor driver and he did an excellent job in the deep snow. Must be the good luck lick from one of the Jersey steers helped him drive so well.
We ended up putting out 425 buckets, about the same as last year. The snowshoes really helped in the woods, and hopefully the trails we made from tree to tree will harden and be easy to travel on when we gather. The kids were tuckered out by lunch time, so they stayed with Grandma and then with Aunt Patty while we finished tapping.
The biggest challenge was keeping enough battery packs charged to run the 19.2 volt battery powered drill we use to tap the trees. We would get about 50 taps out of one pack before it needed charging again, but with 4 packs and two chargers we kept going at a pretty steady pace.
It was great to stop once in a while and just listen to the ping-ping of the drops of sap hitting the bottom of the sap buckets. Music to a sugarmakers ears. Now we just need to get the sugar rig in the sugarhouse ready, and when there is sap to gather we'll be ready to make some syrup.
Breaking a truck trail through the stand of maple trees, for gathering sap buckets later.
After getting Noah off to kindergarten and eating a quick lunch, I hopped on the loader tractor and headed to the woods to break roads for sugaring. We use a tractor and wagon to put out the buckets, and to gather the sap. There are many sugarmakers in the state that still use horses to do this work, but that is one pleasure I have not had. My dad tells stories of gathering with horses that knew the woods roads so well that they knew where to go and where to stop without being told. It would be nice not to climb on and off the tractor over and over while gathering the sap.
One long icicle of maple sap!
I had a fairly easy time breaking the roads. The snow has settled quite a bit with the warm weather this week, with the depth in the woods ranging from 18 to 24 inches. I managed to do all the roads for every different loop through the woods. Whether we tap the maples along all these loops or not will be decided by how many buckets we want to put out this year. We will hang from 400 to 600 buckets. If we put out fewer buckets, we may pass by a section of maples to let them rest this year.
Unfortunately, in breaking the roads I had to mess up some of our ski trails we have been enjoying for the last few weeks. We have plenty of places to ski, but I will miss the trail that goes under the maple tree that has the big "sapcicle" hanging from it every day. I must have broken the tip of the branch the first time I went through to make the ski trail. Now, as the temperatures drop through the evening, the dripping sap from the broken spot slowly makes a 6-8 inch long sapcicle. YUM!
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One curious cow wonders, from the outside, what all the
fuss is about inside the Sugaring Shack,
where sap will be boiled during the upcoming
maple sugaring season on the Gates farm.
Today looks like another sunny, fairly mild day. Every day this week has been fairly sunny with temperatures into the upper thirties. Things are getting thawed out, and we are getting geared up for the maple sugaring season--which requires the warmer days of late winter.
Most of the large maple syrup producers around here, who have pipeline operations, have had their trees tapped for several weeks now. They haven't really made any syrup yet, since the temperatures have been so cold. We have a small operation, and we still use buckets, rather than pipelines, so we haven't been in a rush to get going. But the weather forecast looks good, and we will tap trees and hang buckets this weekend, when plenty of help will be around.
On the agenda for today is washing the pans of the sugar rig to get it ready for boiling the sap. We also are repairing the wagon that we use to put out the buckets and to haul the tub in which we gather the sap.
Left: Noah and his grandmother work on giving the evaporator bins a good cleaning. These bins will be where raw sap is boiled down into maple syrup as soon as the sap starts running in a few weeks.
The 4' X 8' back pan of the sugar rig needs the most scrubbing. That is where most of the water is evaporated out of the sap. With some good hot water, a strong acid detergent, and a good brush, the stainless steel will be sparkling in no time. I picked up 2X 8's, a sheet of 5/8" plywood, and some ceramic screws yesterday to repair the wagon body (below). Once the new deck is on the wagon body, I can put the sides back on and the wagon will be ready to load up with buckets, covers, spouts, and hammers. And kids.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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My son, Ben, and I continued cleaning up the sugaring equipment today. The storage tank still had about 50 gallons of sap in it which we drained out. The pans are 12 feet in length and a width of 4 feet, requiring 15 gallons of hot water with a strong acid soap to help loosen the residue left from boiling in 5500 gallons of maple sap.
While my Mom and Dad milked and my son Ben did heifer chores, I put round bales inside the freestall barn. I bring the 1200 pound round bales into the barn using the loader tractor with the bale grabber attachment. The barn is set up so that I can drive in behind the feeding area and place 4 round bales. The hay fed with pitchforks. We bring 4 new bales into this area every 4 to 5 days. In total, we feed about 3 round bales everyday, about 700 every winter to the milking herd and older heifers and steers.
Today we tackled the least desirable task of the sugaring season, now that it’s over. We washed the 422 sap buckets that we had put out one month ago. While Karen, Ben, Justin, and Noah picked up the buckets in the woods, I set up the bucket washer and rinsing tubs and ran the garden hose from the milkhouse to the sugarhouse to fill the washer and tubs. We started washing a little after 11 a.m.. with me washing, Karen rinsing, and Justin and Noah stacking the washed buckets on the hay wagon. Ben was picking up the last buckets by himself. We stopped for lunch around 1 p.m. with half of the buckets done. After lunch, we changed the wash and rinse waters and started again. To make the day even more enjoyable it started to rain, but we kept at it. We finished around 3:30, a little damp but happy to have the job done. It makes it even more satisfying working with your family to accomplish something.
While Ben helped my parents finish the afternoon chores, I did a few odd jobs around the barn and bedded the pole barn to make the heifers and steers a little more comfortable in the damp weather.
The debate today was whether to gather the sap for the last time and pull the covers off the sap buckets today or wait until tomorrow. Because the weather forecast was rain and wind for tomorrow, my wife, Karen, and I started gathering after an early lunch. We did about half the sugarbush (the stand of sugar maple trees on our property) before I had to stop for the afternoon milking. I had been concerned that we would miss some of the sap run by not waiting to gather until tomorrow, but while gathering I could see that only 1 out of every 5 or 6 taps was still running. Karen's suggestion to gather today had been a good one.
We finished milking and finishing up about 6:30 p.m. Mom watched Justin and Noah, while Karen, Ben, and I finished gathering and pulling covers in the rest of the sugarbush. A little after 8 p.m., we dumped the last pail of sap of the 2004 sugar season. We gathered about 3 tubs of sap. We parked the tractor, pushed the wagon with the gathering tub under cover, picked up the boys from Mom's, and went in for supper.
The sap had run well Thursday afternoon and Friday and needed to be gathered today. We had a good crew on hand to pick up the sap, but we weren't sure who would do the boiling. Dad boiled for 8 hours yesterday and was feeling a little under the weather. We finished gathering around 2 p.m. I had to start the afternoon milking around 3 p.m., so my brother, Steve; my brother-in-law, Jeff; and my son, Ben, would do the sap boiling. Dad did come up to the sugarhouse to get them started, but after that they were on their own. They did a good job. Ben really enjoyed being in charge of drawing off the syrup and firing the arch. I think it had been at least 10 years since anyone besides Dad had done any of the boiling. We made almost 40 gallons of syrup the past two days. This brings the season total to 128 gallons thus far.
A return of the cold in May means a return of the sap
We decided to gather the sap today and clean out the buckets to get ready for what we hope will be some good syruping runs. The weather forecast is for it to turn colder Sunday afternoon with snowfall up to 6 inches. Because of the mild weather this past week, it will take some pretty cold nights to freeze up the trees to get them to run again. We had a good gathering crew today. Along with Karen, Ben, Justin, Noah, and me, there was my brother, Steve, and his daughters Emily and Maddy, and my sister, Betsy, her husband, Jeff, and their kids, Hanna and Zach. We gathered about 2 1/2 tubs. My dad made 9-10 gallons of syrup. This brings the season's total to about 90 gallons.
Sugarmakers often tell how many "barrels", not gallons, they have made for the season. Barrels used to store syrup hold 30 gallons of syrup. So we could say we have made 3 barrels of syrup so far this season.
The organic cooperative we belong to, CROPP Cooperative, is holding their annual meeting today in LaFarge, Wisconsin. CROPP is a farmer-owned cooperative with a board of directors made up of farmers elected from the general membership. Belonging to CROPP gives us, the farmer, a say in how our cooperative is run and a share in any profits the cooperative has made during the year. We have belonged to CROPP for three years now and we have enjoyed belonging to such a successful cooperative.
Last week, winter came back. There were 3 to 4 inches of snow on the ground when I got up one morning! This white stuff will breathe a little more life into the sugaring season. The livestock didn't seem too upset by the snow, but Ben and Justin were disappointed that school wasn't closed. A neighboring school district was closed for the day. It continued snowing pretty good throughout the morning giving us another couple of inches. The snow on top of the mud made for pretty sloppy going while handling round bales and manure this morning.
I was glad that yesterday afternoon I put equipment undercover and bedded the older heifers pole barn before the storm hit. The pole barn gives shelter to the animals wintering outside. I built a bedded pack for the animals to stand and lie on. Instead of scraping out the bedding and manure everyday, like I do in the freestall barn the dairy herd stays in, I just keep adding hay and sawdust to provide a dry, clean area for the animals. By the time the animals stop using it in a few weeks, the bedded pack will be over three feet thick. This material is great for the composting operation.
Big sugaring day today. The snowstorm earlier in the week brought a change in the weather pattern and ideal conditions for a big sap run. My wife Karen, my brother Steve, and I made up the gathering crew. We had the morning chores done by 8:30, so we were ready to start gathering by 9:30, a nice early start. We gathered 6 1/2 tubs or almost 1,000 gallons of sap. The storage tank inside the sugarhouse holds 800 gallons. We had to put about 80 gallons of sap in a stock tank and the last tub we gathered we just left in the gathering tub. Once my dad starts boiling tomorrow, we will dump the extra sap into the storage tank when there is room. We finished gathering around 2 p.m. The weather for the rest of the week looks very promising and we will probably gather again on Saturday. More of the family will be around on the weekend so we will have lots of help. It's always funny, though, that once gathering is done, nobody wants to go to the barn and milk the cows for two hours. Ha, ha.
On March 21, we began gathering sap and boiling it down to syrup for the first time this season. Then it grew colder--2 above zero at 4:30 a.m.—and the sap wasn’t running. I thought it was supposed to be spring. That first day of boiling, we had just enough sap to only make a couple gallons of syrup. Our veterinary service came last Wednesday to check on a cow that calved the week before. Dr. Kent Henderson showed up around 10:30. I had been treating the cow for both calcium deficiency, commonly called milk fever, and ketosis. After examining the cow, Dr. Henderson said I was doing the right things for the cow, and that it was up to her if she got better or not. Doc did give her a 500ml bottle of calcium-mp and a 500ml bottle of dextrose intravenously before he left. It's very frustrating when you are doing everything you can for an animal that's sick and she just won't respond. You do the best you can and accept what happens.
My monthly herd clinic vet, Steve Wadsworth, summed it up best at one clinic. He told the story of how he was encouraging one of his farmers to do a better job on some herd health issue. The farmer replied,"I know I could be a better farmer, but today this is the best I can do".
Jonathan Gates reports from Howmars Farm in Franklin, Vermont.
The sap has been very sweet this year, with the average sugar content of the sap running about 3%. The higher the sugar content of the sap, the less sap it takes to make a gallon of syrup. We use a sap hydrometer to measure the sugar content of the sap. We fill a tall stainless steel cup with sap and float the hydrometer in the sap. The hydrometer is graduated, and we read the graduation at the top of the liquid. The sweetness of the sap from different areas of our sugarbush has ranged this year from 2.6% to 3.9%. The rockier areas tend to run lower, and the trees growing on deep soil tend to run higher in sweetness.
Last Wednesday, Dad finished boiling in the sap that Karen, Steve, our nephew, Jason, and I had gathered. Dad and Ben boiled yesterday until the canning unit was full (it holds 15 gallons) and then they shut down the rig. We gathered almost 5 tubs of sap, and when they shut down, Dad probably had 200-250 gallons of sap left to boil in. 
We ended up putting out 425 buckets, about the same as last year. The snowshoes really helped in the woods, and hopefully the trails we made from tree to tree will harden and be easy to travel on when we gather. The kids were tuckered out by lunch time, so they stayed with Grandma and then with Aunt Patty while we finished tapping. 
Left: Noah and his grandmother work on giving the evaporator bins a good cleaning. These bins will be where raw sap is boiled down into maple syrup as soon as the sap starts running in a few weeks.