Rick Wood couldn’t believe his luck this year when he was able to forego his snowshoes while tapping trees on his Carnarvon acreage.
Working alongside wife, Wendy, the Woods have been producing maple syrup on their Peterson Road property since 2014. What started as a small hobby-like operation, using buckets to collect sap from 80 trees in their first year, has grown to a professional system that draws from more than 850 trees and encompasses around seven kilometres of pipelines.
The Woods were one of many local makers to open their doors to the public April 6 and 7 for the County’s annual Maple Fest. They welcomed around 15 people to their property on Saturday, providing tours of their sugar shack and samples of their Colour of Wood syrup.
“It’s always nice to give people a peek behind the curtain, to show them what we do. And it’s a nice way to meet people we don’t know,” Wendy said.
Rick noted this was their best-ever year production-wise. Despite dropping from 1,000 taps to 850 this season, Rick collected 970 litres of syrup – a big increase from the previous high of 797 litres a few years ago.
He credited the season’s mild weather – saying he was fully tapped by the end of January. The Woods had their first boil Feb. 4
It’s a strenuous process getting things started – Rick said he usually spends about 10 days in the bush tapping trees. He must prepare the system, too. Rick said there’s a one-inch mainline traversing his property, which has 46 lateral runs connected. Each of those runs has 20 to 25 taps on it.
“It makes a natural vacuum coming downhill to the shack, which helps with production,” he said.
Once the sap makes it to the shack, it’s stored in a tank out back. Rick then feeds from there into an interior tank, which can hold up to 1,000 litres. He has a reverse osmosis system that separates the water, which usually leaves around 300 litres of sap to boil. He’ll work at least 12 hours a day during maple season.
“It keeps me busy,” he said.
Bob Snider, of Neil Brown’s Farm in Gooderham, said it was business as usual for him this year. He decided to forego the early rush and stick to his usual schedule that sees him tap in early March. He pulls from 300 trees, usually producing around 300 litres annually.
“I don’t try to capture every last bucket… for me, this is a fun family activity come winter. We didn’t see much of a difference,” Brown said.
John Williams, executive director of the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers’ Association, said “I’ve been hearing generally good things – every year there are people who do well, and people who do not so well. That can be related to the microclimate of the bush, or maybe they missed a weather window early or late in the season.”
