Tapping and AMAZING WEATHER

We are tapping!! We survived the snow apocalypse that turned out to be
nothing. The weather forecast was calling for up to 18 inches of snow.
Then it changed to 6-8 inches, then 1-4. The farm got less than three
inches total. People to the east of the farm weren’t as lucky. Most of
the east coast is completely covered right now. I live about 10 miles
from the farm and we got about 4 inches.

We had a smaller than normal tapping crew this year. We sent out three
teams on Saturday and two teams on Sunday. We have changed our tapping
equipment this year. We are using the battery powered DeWalt drills
instead of the large gas powered drills. The guys are so happy. The
new drills are extremely light weight compared to the gas powered
drills. They bought extra batteries and swapped the batteries out over
lunch. The tapping crews were all extremely happy with the new drills
and the drills and batteries are working great.

New drills

Old drills 

We aren’t completely finished tapping yet. We have finished the middle
hill of our sugarbush and we are almost finished with the back hill. I
think one more full day of tapping and we will be done. The weather
looks AMAZING for sap weather.

With two poor years in 2015 and 2014 due to the extreme weather
conditions, we are praying for a good year this year.

PERFECT sap weather!!! 

I worked around the farm house, made the guys lunch, and worked on a
few small projects. Jen and I went over our to-do list on Saturday and
we only have three pages of stuff left to do. I feel like we are doing
a great job this year getting all of our jobs finished. Most of the
things we have ordered for the store have arrived. I am going to print
price labels this evening and start working on pricing all of the
store items.

I’ll let everyone know how the sap runs this week. Keep your fingers
and toes crossed!!

January 20 Update

We had a very productive working weekend this past week. We are
preparing our woods for tapping within the next week to ten days.
Depending on the weather, we will either be tapping our trees this
weekend (the 23rd and 24th) or the following week and weekend (the
week of the 25th). Depending on which weatherman you watch, we could
get rain or up to 18 inches of snow this weekend. If it snows that
much, we might just pack up and go skiing. It is the time of year when
Robert (my husband) is glued to his phone and the weather stations,
watching the weather predictions. As of now, I think we ***SHOULD***
get 3-6 inches, but the forecasts look like the snow might stay South
of us. Keep your fingers crossed!!

Back to our weekend work progress. I actually helped work in the woods
on Saturday. I usually save all of the jobs close to the house for
myself, but the guys needed an extra set of hands to run some new main
line. The tubing system that runs from tree to tree is a small 5/16
inch flexible plastic tubing. The tubing system connects to a one inch
main line, which runs to holding tanks.  We had some pretty bad
flooding over the summer and some of the main line was either damaged
or destroyed by water.

We were working in the creek. We all bought really good waterproof
boots last year and I was thankful for them today. Great investment –
you really can’t put a price on nice dry feet.

I have also started ordering things for the Sugarstore at the
festival. Some of the items we aren’t capable of making ourselves so
we try to find local producers. The maple candy, maple sugar, maple
nut treats and clusters, shoups seasoning are all made locally in
Indiana. We are also working on a special mug for this year since this
will be the 25th festival.

We have sent out our vendor applications. I think we will have about
10 new vendors this year. Most are local, but we have a few coming
from the Ohio and Kentucky area. I’m hoping the weather holds out
better than last year. Other than our syrup production, I think the
vendors are hit the hardest when we have bad weather.

I’ll post more often when we start tapping and making syrup. Hard to
believe that we only have 37 days until the festival!!

Working Weekend

We had a busy working weekend at the farm. We took advantage of the nice weather and got a lot of outside work completed. 

Robert, Mason and Nic (Jen and I helped a little bit), split about about 22 ricks of wood in two days. We were a little behind on wood this year, so we had a load of seasoned log ends delivered (about 10 ricks once it was all split). We also had a few large trees which had toppled down over the summer which the guys cut up and split. 

I cleaned the music cabin,

Picked up sticks around the buildings,

And put a new coat of polyurethane on all of the building signs.  

The weather was awesome for this time of year. We had sunny weather in the low 40s. 

We plan on tapping in 2-3 weeks depending on the weather. Still lots of work to do before then! 

Jenny and I sent out vendor applications on Saturday and Jenny sent out staff emails today. If we missed anyone, please let us know! 

And so it begins...

The 2015/2016 has started. The guys have spent the last few weekends preparing the tubing system in the woods and cutting firewood. We will tap in late January/early February depending on weather conditions. The future weather predictions are calling for a warmer winter compared to the last few years, which is great news for us.

I'll start working on the vendor applications right after the new year. We are also taking a break from deliveries and shipping orders from December 18-January 8 so we are able to spend more time with our families over the holidays. 

The farm is looking great. While the guys were in the woods last weekend, Jenny, Mason and I cut back all of the landscaping and cleaned the farm house. 

We also put up our Christmas tree at home. Mason picked it out and did most of the decorating. 

We will be at the farm most day tomorrow (Saturday). If you would like to purchase syrup before the holidays, please call to place an order (812-964-4491). 

Wholesale Locations

Our syrup is available at the following locations! If you are interested in a specific size, please call the location directly for accurate availability. 

Our farm is open by appointment. We also meet local customers in the Salem and Louisville area if our schedules allow. Please call 812-967-4491 or email sugrbush@wcrtc.net if you have any questions!!  

Bloomingfoods (3 locations)

3220 East Third Street
Bloomington, IN
812-336-5400

316 W. 6th Street
Bloomington, IN
812-333-7312

614 E. 2nd Street
Bloomington, IN
812-822-0235

* Bloomingfoods carries all sizes of plastic containers.

Good Earth Natural Food Co.
6350 Guilford Ave.
Indianapolis, Indiana
317-253-3709

*Good Earth carries all sizes of plastic containers. 

Pogue’s Run Grocer
2828 E. 10th Street
Indianapolis, Indiana
317-426-4963

* Pogues carries all sizes of plastic containers, excluding gallons. 

Apple Acres
9104 Indiana 37
Bedford, Indiana
812-279-9721

*Apple Acres carries 8oz, pints and quarts of plastic containers.

Bear Wallow Distillery
4484 Old State Road 46
Nashville, IN 47448
812-657-4923

* Bear Wallow carries 8oz and pints in plastic containers, and a nice selection of glass containers. 

Brown County Winery
4520 State Road 46 East
Nashville, IN 47448
812-988-6144

*BCW carries 8oz and pints in plastic containers, and a nice selection of glass containers.

Nashville House
15 S. Van Buren Street
Nashville, IN 47448
812-988-4554

*Nashville House carries 8oz and pints in plastic containers, and a nice selection of glass containers. 

Rainbow Blossom
3738 Lexington Road
Louisville, KY 40207
502-896-0189

*Rainbow Blossom carries all sizes of plastic containers. 

Summertime

We hosted our first wedding at the farm on August 1st. Our very good
friends Kenny and Tara, who both work with us during the maple syrup
season, were married on a gorgeous Saturday evening. It was beautiful.
Our only involvement was providing the venue – their friends and
family cleaned, decorated, set-up, and tore down all of the wedding
related things.

It was rustic and elegant. The weather was perfect. They brought in a
huge white tent. They had purple and white wildflowers, barn-board
signs, mason jars, and hay bales. Everyone had a wonderful time.

We have tossed around the idea of hosting weddings and special events
at the farm for a while. If you are looking for a very rustic, outdoor
setting for your event, shoot us an email at sugrbush@wcrtc.net or call 812-967-4491. 

My little man turned three on August 10th. I can’t believe that he has
grown up so quickly. We had a Paw Patrol themed birthday party on
August 15th with our family. Mason’s big present was a trampoline. We
have been doing a lot of jumping.

He also started his second year of preschool on August 12th. He was so
grown up and didn’t cry at all on the first day.

Robert also finished his contract house this month. It will close
within the next two weeks. I know I’m biased, but it is a beautiful
house. Robert did a lot of the work himself and it is stunning.

Jenny has had a busy summer showing her horse. We are going down to
Lexington next weekend for her next show. She is showing at the
Preliminary level of eventing – with hopes of moving up to
Intermediate within the next year.

The maple syrup part of the farm is very repetitive to blog about on
the off season. We are still mowing a lot of grass, bottling syrup,
and making deliveries to our wholesale customers.  No new or exciting
updates to report :)

Hard to believe we are already at the half way mark to the 2016 festival. It's almost time to start cutting firewood! 

Dog Days of Summer

Blink an eye and it’s been a few months since my last blog post. I’m
such a bad blogger!!

Nothing new or exciting to report, hence the lack of posting. We have
settled into our off season routine. I go to the
Indianapolis/Bloomington area about three times every two months for
deliveries. Jen and Nic do all of the Louisville area deliveries over
lunch or after work. We mow a lot of grass at the farm. It’s HOT.

We have been extremely busy in our personal lives as well, away from
the farm. Robert works with a general contracting firm specializing in
new residential construction. He has close to 20 houses in various
stages of development, with more on the way. He is contracting his
first home on his own this summer, which he is very excited about!

Mason is out of preschool for the summer so we have been spending a
lot of time playing outside, swimming and camping. We are very
fortunate that my sister-in-law is a teacher and has the summer off.
Mason spends the day with her while I’m working and they have a ton of
fun.

Jen has been busy showing her horse. She recently completed her first
Preliminary event at the Indiana Eventing Association Horse Trials.
Her next competition is at the Kentucky Horse Park the second weekend
in July. We camp at most of her shows throughout the summer and I’m
her “minion” at the shows.

We had planned on hosting a Spring/Summer open house day at the farm,
but with our busy schedules, we haven’t had a good weekend between the
4 of us. Hopefully we can plan one in the fall. We do syrup sales by
appointment at the farm and ship world wide all year.Just call or send us an email if you need to get a hold of us!!