family events, we did our family Christmas on the weekend before
Christmas. Jen and Nic spent the holiday in Michigan with Nic’s
relatives and Robert, Mason and I spent Christmas Eve with his parents
and Christmas Day with his grandmother. We all stuffed ourselves with
delicious food, had a wonderful time catching up with all of our
family members, and were gifted a lot of pretty amazing presents!
The business is still keeping us busy. Our shipment of supplies (syrup
jugs, tubing, spiles, tapping supplies, etc) arrived from Michigan.
The order was shipped to another local sugarbush in North Vernon,
Indiana. Nic and Jen made the trip up there yesterday (Thursday) to
pick it up. The guys spent all afternoon hauling and cutting firewood.
Nic’s parents came to the farm over Christmas break (both are teachers
in the Cincinnati area). Nic’s dad remodeled part of the Sugarstore
and Nic’s mom cleaned out several of the cabins on the farm. Their
help is greatly appreciated.
Robert spent several hours on Thursday getting the evaporator ready
for the season. Every March when the season is over, we take all of
the front finishing pans off and take all of the ashes out of the
firebox. It is a dirty job shoveling out all of the ashes.
Jen and I spent the day working inside. Jen made more drop lines for
our tubing replacement project in the woods. It is much more efficient
to pre-make 2 tap and three tap drop lines inside where it is warm,
rather than making them one by one in the woods. I cleaned the house
and dated all of the reminder post cards that we collect at the
festival. We are planning on finishing all of the vendor letters and
sending packets out to staff members this weekend.
We will be at the farm all weekend this weekend. The weather looks
pretty nasty so we might be limited to indoor activities. We need to
unpack and organize our supplies, bottle syrup for several orders this
week, and continue working on our festival check-list. It is hard to
believe that we only have 8 weeks until the festival….OMG!!!
Love the blog and cannot wait to come to the festival. My sister and brother in law have a small operation in Maine and I hope to visit them during their maple syrup season too.
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