With today’s blog post, I will provide an update on the Vermont Cabane De Sucre project, and review our visit to Broad Look Maple, in Derby Vermont.
I am happy to report that all silver coins have been sold. I did keep the last one as a keepsake (in addition to the coin that was on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico for 200+ years.) This last coin is an 1878 Morgan Silver Dollar minted in San Francisco. I couldn’t part with all of them. I sold 304 coins for a total of $52,388 and netted $41,460 after paying eBay their portion as well as the cost of shipping and insurance. Some of you reading this, may have purchased one or more of the coins and I want to thank you for following our story. Our total project savings to date is $42,194.
Two of the three operating sugarhouses we visited, had undergone expansions (one multiple times), and a recommendation from the third visit (Broad Look Maple ) was to make sure the sugarhouse was large enough to have plenty of room in front of the evaporator to fire the arch without worry of catching anything on fire. With this information, we will likely expand the size of the sugarhouse. Not sure how, or what, but I’ve added an additional $4000 for building material. In addition, since the last post, I calculated the cost to have the main and lateral lines installed to be $5500 (I already had calculated the cost for the material to be $15000). We concluded to have a professional install our sap lines after spending time at Roy’s Maples. When adding this up, we are now looking at $68,550. This leaves an additional $26,356 to fully fund the project.
One morning, while in Vermont, I headed to Newport Farm and Garden. The day before, while driving by this store, I saw a wood splitter poking out from under a bank of snow in an outside display area. I would need a wood splitter for the firewood to fire the arch with. With pleasant conversations concluded, I had purchased a 30-Ton Oregon splitter and had it hooked to the back of my SUV and headed back to the homestead. I had just put the wood splitter in the shop area and had started working on the ATV (Installing chainsaw mount) when a neighbor pulled into the driveway. It was Bob Aldrich and his daughter Ruthie.
Bob is a great long-term friend and neighbor of the family. Always willing to provide a helping hand when needed, Bob had heard Charla and I were going to try and bring the family sugaring operation back to life and he wanted to provide as much helpful information as possible. Bob’s brother, Dean Aldrich had recently set up a sugaring operation and Bob thought it was a good idea for us to visit his brother's operation and see if there was anything we could learn from him. Charla and I put away a few tools and headed to Broad Look Maple about six miles from our location.
Upon arriving at Broad Look Maple, we were met with a newly built sugarhouse with an additional workshop area off to the side.
Dean was welcoming and we talked about days past when Dean worked for us periodically on the farm while I was growing up. Dean had cut, and sawn, the lumber for his sugarhouse. He had done a beautiful job turning cedar trees into support beams with tongue and groove cedar walls. Dean had done a quality job from beginning to end.
Dean wanted his operation to be “old school." You can hear him make the statement in this video where we watched him fire the arch and discussed the traditional Leader Evaporator as it was boiling its current cargo of sap. Dean stated he wanted to stay with the more traditional way of doing things.
I asked him if there was anything he would have done differently and he stated he wished he would have provided more room in front of the arch to allow easier access when firing the arch (loading wood into it).
Charla and I were gracious for the time Dean showed us around the sugarhouse and explained why he had set up the operation the way he had. Charla and I thanked Bob, and his daughter Ruthie for bringing us to the sugarhouse.
Bob is a very Wise-Elder in our local area of Vermont and I very much appreciated his desire to pass along any knowledge he could to help us as we bring our sugaring operation back to life. My father was sick for many months before he passed, and Bob often stopped over to see how the family was doing. Bob has plowed my parents’ driveway in the winter many, many times over the years which I thank him for.
This concludes our reports on visiting three sugaring operations. Which is probably a good thing as we expanded our project with each visit.
And now that the silver coins have been sold, I will start looking at the activities that are needed this spring. If the reader wants a refresher, please see this link.
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