Yesterday morning, on a very chilly President’s Day, I had the bright idea of calling up the local Sugaring House owned by Eastman “Easty” Long and Sons to see what was up. The word on the street was the sap has been running in many parts of the state due to the warmer than usual temps. Easty told me if I was there by 10am, I was welcomed to tag-along.
Eastman and Sons are located about 1.2 miles up Tucker Hill Road in Waitsfield, VT
Well heck, I’ve been wanting to explore the world of sugaring for the last two years, so I bundled up and headed over to Tucker Hill Road in Waitsfield. I was a few minutes early, but Easty told me to just follow the path… so I did! A few minutes into my walk I heard the sounds of snowmobiles and what turned out to be a mini-looking-snow-cat-ATV-of-sorts ready for the occasion…
Eastman "Easty" Long (Red Hat) with one of his crew Stefan Kluckner of Fayston, VT coming up the path with an arsenal of drills to tap the last of their Maple trees for the 2012 Season.
Easty invited me to hop-on and we weaved and ducked around and under the maze of lines that the sap flows through. It’s bit of a “cat’s cradle” when you look through the woods!
Here’s a visual story of my time walking through the woods with Easty and learning a tiny bit more about the operation behind the more modern day ways of tapping Maples… Frankly I have a lot to learn!
Easty grabbing some extra tubing to bring out into the field, with fellow crew AJ Wimble in the background.
Giving his crew Dennis Schofield a little direction before they each head off to finish tapping the last of the trees.
There's a lot of ducking and weaving!
Easty checking the line and tap before drilling a fresh hole for the season. He explains that you have to be mindful not to tap where you have before because the tree creates a pocket in that area and needs time to heal.
He also uses this time to carefully inspect the lines, and the trees.
I asked if it all gets a bit confusing and Easty explained that all the smaller "light blue" lines are like side-streets which all lead to the "main drag" which is the more sturdy pipe-like line. If I get lost, follow the main line!
Easty and his crew first remove last year's tap...
They then drill a fresh hole away from previous tap locations...
Clean the new hole out...
They then gently tap in the little "spout" where the sap will flow from tree to tubing...
From one tree to the next... till they are all ready for this week's warmer temps!
I mentioned early in the post how it looks a bit like a gigantic "cat's craddle" as you look out into the woods!
This was such a tiny sample of what the full Vermont Maple Syrup operation truly entails! I was grateful for just an hour of their time and the beautiful walk through the woods. Easty told me that normally it’s not this cold when they do this, and that typically they would be tapping very early in the morning. However, on this day they had to wait till it was about 20 degrees out before they could tap the trees, which was my luck! I was actually able to catch them in action!
Across the state sugaring enthusiast and professionals like Eastman and Sons are already tapping, and in some cases have already boiled their first batch of syrup! Easty’s trees are in a slightly cooler zone, so I have maybe a week before heading back to visit -catch them during the boiling process. I can hardly wait! I’m the girl who puts Maple Syrup in and on EVERYTHING!
Special thank you to Easty, his son Eric Long, and rest of the crew: Troy Thayer, Stefan Kluckner, AJ Wimble, and Dennis Schofield. It was the perfect start to my week! Be sure to keep an eye out for their Maple Syrup while visiting the Mad River Valley!
