MeInMaine Blog

Tag: maine maple syrup

  • Maine Maple Sunday

    Maine Maple Sunday

    Maine Maple Sunday, a yearly event in Vacationland.

    Heading to the maple grove woodlots to tap trees, run lines for the golden syrup. Or the Maine home owner digs out the spouts, the snowshoes. Who taps the stately maple shade trees using buckets out front their house.

    Spring Break Maine Maple Syrup Sap Operations.
    Sugar Shacks Open House In Smyrna Maine.

    Lots of Mainers own woodlots to heat their homes and for recreation camp getaways.

    Many Maine home owners have maple tree lined driveways. Dotting, shading along the street or road out front of their houses. Maine Maple Sunday is a big deal and it’s the 40th event this weekend. Always remember, it’s the last Sunday in March when sugar shacks and maple syrup producer distilleries open up their operations for old and young alike.

    Inviting you in to witness up close and personal the 40 to 1 boiling down evaporating process. Before that the trip to the Maine woodlot to collect what runs in the lines or fills the galvanized buckets. You will also see the finished products made with pride of Maine produced pure maple syrup. Not some watered down from who knows where and all those artificial additives and colors.

    Watch A Maine Maple Sunday Weekend Open House Sugarhouse Video Tour!

    tapping sap maine maple syrup
    Tap It In, Open Up The Faucet To Maine Maple Tree Sap. That’s The Easy Part.

    Many Maine land owners have forest timber stands of maple hardwood trees that are idea for tapping the sap to make syrup.

    The old fashion bucket collection system is slow and labor intensive but still fun to celebrate the approaching spring. Colder nights, warmer days and being outside collecting sap is a family tradition. I grew up doing it with my Dad who loved the woods. Creating home grown tap sap for your own Maine maple syrup! Ever done it? Would you like to?

    maine maple syrup photo
    It Costs More, But Maine Maple Syrup Is Pure And Natural. Not Loaded With Fructose, Additives, Preservatives.

    Many trips to the Ludlow Maine woodlot to collect annual renewable firewood and the maple tree sap for syrup.

    It’s all about just enjoying a Sunday afternoon picnic in your private woodlot loaded with wildlife. Just wildlife, nature to witness, no two legged critters to spoil the experience.

    maine maple syrup sunday
    Maine Maple Syrup Sunday Weekend! Ever Toured A Sugarhouse In Maine? Watch Maine Maple Syrup Video.

    Snow still on the ground, its is always the last one at the party to leave in wooded tracts of Maine land.

    Hanging around in the Maine woodlots and when warmer day temperatures happen. Snow in Maine, always the last place to melt and disappear in woodlots. It’s why diehard snowmobiling continues longer on forest trails.

    maine maple tree sap bucket
    Maine Maple Sap Bucket Collects The Clear Watery Sap That Boils Down To Thick Amber Maple Syrup.

    All those tall stately trees shading out the growing strong sun. That’s what extends winter snowscape a tad longer if you want a little more Maine snow sled trail riding time.

    It’s more than the ritual of collecting maple tree sap to boil it down for the amber elixir that’s all natural.

    Maple Sunday Weekend in Maine represents spring. One more sign that winter is waning, the long shadow of the low on the horizon sun is shifting its angle. Hope and faith that spring is ahead helps true Mainers dig out their garden and farm seed catalogs. It shows acceptance that winter is passing by and ready to fill the rear view mirror.

    winter trails in maine
    What you See On Maine Winter, Early Spring Recreation Trails. Wildlife, Scenery, A Bald Eagle, Moose.

    Buds on the trees, early bulb flowers poking up through the ground around your Maine house foundation.

    Snow banks receding, peppered with road sand and salt remains. Dusty, dirty. battle weary. Some lawns look like a bomb hit and a war was fought. Deep gouges with missing sod, thanks to the snow plow operator who did not lift the blade an inch or two when the ground is soft. Lots of gravel and road sand needing raking to remove. Spring run off from months of Maine snow increasing the smelting speed. The width of brooks, streams and rivers that grow exponentially this time of year.

    Some places in rural Maine there is flooding that crosses back roadways for a few hours or a couple days.

    Excitement about new flowers, the fragrant and colorful floral displays that happen on their own in Maine. It’s all ahead and exciting. Every Maine season offers it’s own special version of outdoor beauty. They work together. Like fall explosive colors are a second bloom of what happened over summer. There is overlap and tag team tug of war in the Maine season transition. It’s not snap your fingers quick and easy.

    orono bog walk flowers
    The Many Flowers You See On Your Orono ME Bog Walk. Bring Your Camera!

    Dig out your kayak and canoe to ride the waves around the state of Maine canoe race circuit.

    Noise Of Water, Adrenalin Pumping As You White Water Raft On A Maine River.
    We’re Going In, Gonna Get Wet.

    Potholes blooming along streets and frost heaves forming in the old familiar places on Maine highways. Smelts running to fish net.

    Maine maple Sunday, it happens for the 40th year on March 26th, 2023.

    Sap collection, it’s a form of farming. Just like harvesting fish off the coast of Maine is too. Not just rows of planted seeds or seedlings. More than just fence posts planted or straighten and lines run around Maine pasture fields for critter containment. And to keep the wildlife on the other side where they belong.

    Homesteading in Maine.

    It’s picked up a resurgence since COVID turned on the bright harsh last call lights indicating you have to go. We don’t care where you go but you can’t stay here. It’s plenty sobering when home does not feel so home sweet home anymore.

    Pack up to move to Maine.

    Lots are doing it and I have read the state of Maine is number two for where folks pick for their new home base. Maine Maple Weekend Sunday is one more fun thing to do. To get out and observe when you are lucky enough to spend more than just a long weekend or seven day string of rest and relaxation in Vacationland.

    maine farm license plate
    Agriculture, Farm Food Grown Close To Home, Locally Sourced Is The Best Tasting. Want To Homestead In Maine?

    In Maine grocery stores, you have lots of choices for maple syrup.

    You find your log cabin or lady with the head scarf brands of maple syrup to drizzle. Most from Vermont, some from Canada, more and more from Maine. But searching for the Maine made all natural maple syrup, the little jug of close to home grown oozing sweetness is not always there.

    Or the $15 dollar sticker price can cause pause, temporary pain and suffering in the grocery aisles.

    Until you remember how good, how natural and nothing artificial Maine maple syrup is. And you have a local farmer tending the Maine maple tree sap collecting operation. Support your Maine producer because no farmer, no food.

    maine woods photo
    The Solitude, Peaceful Feeling Of The Maine Woods In Winter. Don’t Miss Maine Maple Sunday This 40th Year.

    See the list of all the open houses for Maine Maple Sunday weekend outlets and visit one or two near you that dot the link map.

    Maple syrup is not just for lathering up pancakes and waffles with melting butter as a playmate. Lubricating stacks of jacks at breakfast time wakey wakey is not the only time to enjoy maple syrup.

    Maple syrup is a sweetener for anything from candy to cake to pies, for dressings, a companion to scoops of ice cream.

    Coffee for many just tastes better with a shot or two of Maine maple syrup. Discovered long before the turbo this, double shot of that mist topping of caramel swirl.

    old coffee pot
    Coffee Early In The Morning The Old Fashion Way! Get To Maine, Relax, Breathe.

    Try a little maple syrup for the home brewed cup of Joe.

    Instead of shelling out daily for the expensive red, blue, whatever exotic dye color addiction drive through fix. The reach for the gotta have the designer hot or cold coffee mainline or you will die right here and now. It’s an expensive daily ritual of hot and ready for many. You see the long long lines outside the drive thru of all the Maine coffee hound baristas locations.

    The life or death sustenance of artificial life, fill it to the brim to win la-di dah latte.

    The burn your hand even with a double sleeve, lava hot center of the sun blistering temperature money grab. The first thing on your mind when the eyelids go north.

    The addiction that kept you awake half the night.

    And Chummy, if you don’t get your special blend of foo foo coffee concoction with a triple pump of extra coconut oat almond milk shot please. Well now, life as you know it wired on caffeine is just not going to be as brightly colored orhalf the fun. Just sayin’.

    Sorry for the rant. Don’t get me wrong. I love my basic black fresh brewed cup of coffee without all the Hollywood after affects. Missing the boat on all those extra expensive, time in line consuming  ingredients to jazz up the coffee break experience.

    Maybe I am missing something.

    Just want a quick pit stop and not a coffee snob. Keep it simple. Make it black. Pitch black. Darker than the inside of a color black. (Pouring in a jigger of pure and natural Maine maple syrup) It’s always a good time for a cup of coffee and fellowship, communion in the great state of Maine outdoor landscape. Early morning parked next to a Maine lake is my happy place. Have another cup? Well, yes please if you’re up and pouring. Hit me with a little maple syrup, gotta give it a try.

    Back on blog post topic for Maple syrup, the sugar shack open house weekend for local Maine producers.

    Every maple syrup producer in Maine can claim to be the best and they are all right.

    maine farm bull winter photo
    Fresh Hot Coffee, Whatever Meal Tastes Improves After Maine Farm Chores Complete. Try Some Maine Maple Syrup On The Flap Jacks, In Your Coffee.

    These hard working Maine maple grove tree tapping sap collecting folks want to share an experience.

    To show you how the process goes and all the many maple syrup by products out there to enjoy. Maple syrup, more than just a pancake or waffle meal pleasure experience.

    Have you ever been to a Maine maple syrup open house Sunday? You know what all the ink spilling is all about then. If not, you should celebrate spring. Support your local Maine maple syrup producer.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

    207.532.6573 |  info@mooersrealty.com  |

    MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

     

  • Maine Maple Syrup Sunday | Sugar Houses In Maine

    Maine Maple Syrup Sunday | Sugar Houses In Maine

    Maine maple syrup Sunday, sugar houses in Maine.

    Every year Maine maple sugar house farm producers open up their woodlot operations. The public gets to sneak a peek. Go behind the scenes for how the maple syrup actually gets collected and refined. To sample and see all the work to transform clear watery liquid sap into what gets boiled down into the honey amber golden syrup.

    Maine maple syrup Sunday where the forty to one boil it down maple syrup production woodlot sap collection happens.

    The long hard process gets explained by local Maine woodlot tree farmers. To get what you drizzle over tall towering stacks of flap jacks, my by far favorite Maine maple syrup application. Pancakes, ploys taste better with Maine maple syrup. Swimming, drenching Maine made food items in the liquid topping we all love so much.

    maine maple tree sap bucket
    Maine Maple Sap Bucket Collects Clear Watery Sap To Boil Down To Thick Amber Maple Syrup. Covered Lid To Keep Melting Ice And Rain Water Out.

    You can not stop spring desperate to be sprung in Maine.

    The seasons change with or without you. The pandemic kinks the hose a little in how the Maine Maple Sunday operations will flow this year on March 28th. But the sap is on tap and it’s almost showtime. You can not stop Mother Nature pair up with Jack Frost. Where the two tag team to yearly produce another batch of highly addictive amber gold Maine maple syrup.

    Over 100 Maine Maple Sunday syrup collecting sugar bush tours ahead in this 38th annual event.

    All the family friendly entertainment to sample the maple syrup products coming  to a sap collection venue near you. From York to Aroostook County, Maine maple syrup tree tapping demonstrations are going to happen ready or not. The fun activities to sample the all natural syrup sweetener await. Mark the date, please circle March 28th a couple times in red on your kitchen calendar. To make sure not to forget. That it’s that time again. For all the Maine maple syrup producers statewide to join together and promote some great maple products.

    Let’s check in with Ed and Pat Jillsons to see what a Maine Maple Sunday open house looks like pre-pandemic with the magic of video.

    Here’s the Maine Maple Sunday map of sugar houses to find one or more near you “celebrate approaching spring” open house tours.

    To protect the public adhering to the state’s COVID 19 safety protocols, Maine maple syrup farm producers will step back. Spacing it out to creatively and safety do the show and tell sugar bush demonstrations. But nothing can stop the excitement surrounding Maine maple Sunday when spring syrup is collected from tapped trees around Vacationland.

    While out on the McIntyre Road touring a Maine river front land property listing last weekend, I spied with my little eye the hanging galvanized buckets. Hooked securely to sap taps on maple trees across the road, the inspiration for this next Me In Maine blog post clicked. Like a minister looking for the next week’s sermon, why not ask folks out in the audience what comes to mind from two words, maple syrup?

    And do you think log cabin maple syrup or the lady with the bandana smiling at you?

    Or Maine maple syrup no matter what the price of the supermarket jug. Pure, natural Maine maple syrup, woodlot to your family table please and thank you. There’s your sign, that’s your brand. Settling for nothing but the best, forgetting all the rest of those light weight, watered down imitations full of fructose and God only knows what else that we all know if bad for your body right?

    tapping maple trees in maine for sap
    The Sweet Stuff, Rock Maple Sap That Boils Down 40 To 1 For The Golden Mixture To Ooze On Your Maine Blueberry Pancakes.

    New England maple syrup, do you thick of log cabins and the state of Vermont?

    local news in small maine towns
    Maple Shade Trees Are Full Of Syrup Sap When Above Freezing Days, The Other Way Below Zero Nights.

    Well move over Bernie Sanders and Ben and Jerry’s, the state of Maine produces more than 575,000 gallons of maple syrup yearly. Over $27 million dollars from Maine maple syrup production flows into the state’s economy. More than 560 full and part time jobs generate the sugar shack sap house excitement.

    If there were no Maine maple sugar houses, it would produce a gaping hole cavity of over $17.3 million in worker’s wages.

    Does it hurt a maple tree to tap the sap? Is there a right and wrong way to vampire the live giving fluid? Isn’t natural tree sap needed to jump start the new buds that create the green hardwood solar collectors to continue forest stand growth?

    How would you like a high speed drill coming at you from all angles to look for a mainline sap artery to slow drip into the hanging bucket weighing you down?

    You know drilling out a tooth cavity is not the most enjoyed Maine recreational activity. But like a colonoscopy, Maine humorist Tim Sample says you’ll get through it like a Maine winter.

    What maple trees can be tapped for the best syrup? Maple syrup can be made from any species of maple tree. Trees to tap for the sap are sugar, red, silver, black maple and box elder varieties. But the highest natural sugar concentration maple syrup is from the sugar maple.

    Many maple species lack a high enough concentration of sap sugar… kinda anemic and not your super donors. Like down at the Red Cross lay down, roll up your sleeve and give the gift of life.

    These light weight minor league maple trees mean you need even more watery sap to collect and boil down for syrup magic. With up to 60 gallons of maple tree sap needed to produce just a gallon of that precious golden syrup.

    Here’s one video on tapping Maine maple trees and how to do syrup sap correctly.

    I first got the bug about what if there was a local sugar bush maple trees to tap the sap for rich tasty syrup from my Dad.

    On the Maine farm my four brothers and I grew up on, the long driveways of stately maple trees were tapped yearly. For way smaller but sweet treat syrup production on the farmstead kitchen gas stove. Sometimes using a wood heater to boil it down. But something larger scale was always on the back burner in my Dad’s thoughts. When just a little shaver of about seven, my Dad fired up the 1966 Snow Jet to head to the maple tree heavy woodlot. The sled were rode on purchased from my Uncle Carl Hagan who was the blue snowmobile dealer in Cary Mills, Maine.

    Together, Dad and I made the trek to the 100 acre family woodlot in Ludlow Maine.  To weave the snow machine around the ridge of tall hardwood maple trees. To survey them for the best plan if we ever created a sugar bush, a sugar house to create the maple syrup from our own Maine woodlot.

    maine woods photo
    The Solitude, Peaceful Feeling Of The Maine Woods In Winter. Don’t Miss Maine Maple Sunday Sugar House Open House Demonstrations Nearest You This March 28th.

    Dad had lots of irons in the fire and was quite the entrepreneur.

    With little free time already spoken for to kick off the sugar house maple syrup dream, it did stop him from the mental layout of just how he would do it. To create an intricate series of tubing for sap collection up in the Ludlow Maine woodlot where we yearly gathered firewood to heat our homes. Lack of enough hours in the day to pull it off, Dad still had a vivid detailed vision he shared with me of a large sugar bush maple syrup operation. The one he saw in his head where just everything would go from his life long study and passion for the heavily wooded maple tree forest terrain.

    Complete with large long hand made wooden tables with picnic style benches to slide along to find your place for the celebration of a new maple syrup batch.

    Walls that open out and up to let in the natural light. Open sides of the forest dining room utilized for fresh frosty air. Served up with baked beans, pancakes, sizzling bacon strips, smothered corn fritters, sweet breads, sweet glazed donuts all with a common ingredient of Maine maple syrup. A communion ritual to invite in all your friends, family and neighbors to celebrate the approaching spring renewal of life. To quell the hunger for new Maine maple syrup infused in the yearly event up in the Aroostook County woodlot.

    maine maple syrup producing
    Maine Maple Sugar Shack Sap Production. No Network Of Tubes Gravity Feeding Into A Tree Sap Reservoir. Just A Simple Bucket Brigade ME Syrup Collection.

    To introduce young and old to the sound of the crackling fire under the steaming maple sap evaporator woodlot scene.

    As they pushed food around their tin plates in the sugary maple syrup for the bath before open up the hatch and down the gullet. Dad saw maple syrup as one more agricultural endeavor to sponsor to get Maine farmers away from mono-culture thinking. Of potato, potato, potato with a little grain in the crop rotation on small family Maine farms. The one that desperately needed to diversify to avoid having all the eggs in one basket. Income on a small family Maine farm has to come from many sources. To assure you stay on the family patch of dirt passed down through the many generations. To assure someone is around to feed the rest of us that don’t farm.

    After a long Maine winter, even Pa Ingalls touted the medicinal health benefits of maple syrup used in the Little House in the Big Woods too.

    The all natural elixir that requires a lot of hard work to collect the sap. Then the fun part of maple syrup making of collecting it bucket by bucket. To pour the clear watery sap into an evaporator for the boiling it down. Tending the wood fires to steadily reduce the maple tree sap into the 40 to 1 evaporation. To distill the amber gold slow moving liquid used so many ways. The alternative to white sugar, do you add Maine maple syrup to your fresh brewed morning coffee? Is the Maine maple syrup used in your cooking or to make candies? Are you planing to take in the sights this Maine Maple Syrup Sunday and support the local producers?

    One more old fashioned Maine sugar house maple syrup production video.

    It is a family day where Mainers bring their kids, can get a horse drawn sleigh ride. To sample some Maine maple syrup candy. Get out, shake off the winter mental cobwebs and break free of cabin fever. A little sugar shack shock of the taste buds does a body good and these open house demonstrations are healthy from many angles. And sure beats sitting on the couch and killing time inside . When you are missing out big time on a worthwhile sugar house demonstration in your own backyard. That supports local Maple syrup producers and the local communities around them.

    Another pre-COVID Maine Maple Sunday sugar house operation video to stir the bug to attend one.

    I remember seeing an old sugar house up behind my Mom’s home place on Benn Hill in Hodgdon Maine.

    When all the cousins rotated our home locations week to week to play Sunday after church. While the Aunts and Uncles all socialized and caught up on local events. Thank you for the stopping by today to read, watch and learn about Maine Maple Sunday that has happened for the last 38 years and getting bigger and better than ever.

    These Maine maple syrup sugar house open houses can provide up to 50% of the operation’s golden profit.

    Highly important and more than ever this year to recover from pandemic losses as everything we know as normal went through a blender and got reconstituted. This is what’s happening around the “Crown of Maine” for Maine Maple Sunday plans . Up here in Aroostook County, the garden of Maine when talking maple syrup production this year. A lot of Maine maple syrup producers add honey to what they produce and sell like Spring Break operation in Smyrna Maine.

    Please make an effort to attend a Maine Maple Syrup Sunday open house sugar house tour or two near you this year.

    Remember, no farmer, no food. Think about that when you enjoy whatever is served up three times or more a day. Wherever you hang your hat when the dinner bell rings. The support for the local Maine maple syrup farm producers. Support for the local sugar bushes, the Maine maple Sunday syrup producers is more important that ever this year as we come out the other side of the pandemic tunnel.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

    207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com  |  MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA