Tag Archives: maple syrup

End of the 2023 Sugarbush Season

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Our 50th production season has come to an end and we are pleased to report that we had a good year.  The volume of our crop was above our long-term average and the quality is excellent.  We did not make as much dark and very dark syrup as we wanted, but that is beyond our control. The unseasonably hot weather brought the trees out of dormancy very quickly, changing the chemistry of the sap and rendering it unusable.

It was a challenging season in the woods dealing with the effects of last summer’s derecho and then the ice storm in April.  This is the fist time we have experienced damaging ice conditions during maple season as well as a prolonged power failure.  We managed to clear the fallen branches and trees and get the pipeline systems back into shape over three days and gathered a lot of sap once the power was back on.  We will investigate back up power options as electricity is critical in all aspects of our production systems. 

We enjoyed seeing all our friends and customers and appreciate your positive feedback on your experience at the farm and our maple products.  It’s so nice to connect with folks every year and catch up on news and events!

Once we stop collecting sap, the cleaning begins.  All the taps are removed from the trees, our lines are back washed with water and then injected with alcohol to sanitize the network.  The alcohol vapours remain in the pipelines, keeping them clean until we tap our trees again next spring.  We scrub our sap collection tanks, clean the pump houses and service our pumps (there are many pumps!).  The  evaporator is drained and cleaned carefully as well as the reverse osmosis machine and membranes.  All the clean-up takes about three weeks and seems to go quicker when we’ve had good production.

In the forest, the leaves are emerging and we are pleased to see flowers on some of our maples.  The wind and ice storms have created many openings in the canopy and a good crop of maple seeds means that future generations of maple trees will be established where others have fallen. The woods are alive with birds, who unlike us, are looking forward to the arrival of insects.

Buying / Ordering Syrup

As of May 1, we will no longer have daily hours in the store but plan to be open on Saturdays from 10 to 2. 

Syrup can be ordered and picked up anytime at the farm from our lock boxes.  We have also started making deliveries and ship syrup around the world to customers far and wide.  We have a good supply of golden, amber, and dark syrup as well as our other maple products.

The Fortune Family, the Kettle Boys, Shanty Men and staff at the farm would like to thank everyone who visits the farm and enjoys our products.  Sharing maple season with you is a tradition we all enjoy.

Warm weather has arrived along with dark maple syrup

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It’s been a very busy time at the Farm!  It took us four days to clear trees and branches and repair our pipeline networks following the ice storm.  We missed a couple of days of production as we were without hydro, however, we had lots of visitors at the Farm over the Easter and it seems that a good time was had by all. 

The warm weather has reduced the flow of sap. It is still running this morning, April 12.  We expect that the end of the production season is close.   We will make this decision to turn off the pumps and start  clean-up based on the conditions of the sap and the quality of syrup that we are producing.  With no frost at night and high daily temperatures, the trees will start to come out of dormancy, and when they do, the sap will change chemistry and the syrup will be bitter and unpalatable.  The surest sign that the season is over is the signing of chorus frogs and spring peppers – none yet in our area!

Golden, amber and dark syrup from Fortune Farms

Golden, amber and dark syrup from Fortune Farms

The early mornings are special at this time of year as birds are in full chorus marking territories and attracting mates.  We also have a yellow-bellied sap sucker trying to drill holes in an aluminum ladder at the camp – not sure what it’s thinking, but it is persistent!  Our bluebirds are back at the farm and have claimed their nest boxes.  They are a joy to watch as they raise their broods throughout the summer. 

With the warmer weather we have started to make dark syrup.  This is good news for our customers who have been waiting for the darker grades.  I’m not very confident that we make much very dark grade given the weather forecast, but we will see what happens over the next couple of days.  We are filling our orders for dark syrup now and will be contacting customers for pick up.  We are open daily from 10 to 4.  Our phone is also working again if you want to give us a call – 613 256 5216.

Our birds are coming back

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Our Red Shouldered Hawks appeared on schedule this week to our Clayton property as well as at the Lanark Farm.  These birds are philopatric, meaning they will return and nest in the same area year after year.  Prime habitat is old/mature hardwood forest with high crowns. 

The Derecho damage at the farm occurred in the vicinity of one of the traditional nesting sites so we will see if this disturbance affects where the hawks eventually settle.  The hawks have a characteristic cry and can be regularly seen and heard circling above the woods.

I have seen the first bluebirds perched on the wires along the roadway.  They regularly use  the nesting boxes around the neighbourhood, including a couple at the farm.  We’ll watch to see when they set up shop.

On Wednesday morning, large flocks of migrating Canada geese were passing high overhead.  Geese leave the wintering grounds along the Atlantic coast and head north to breeding areas as ice melts and food sources become available.  These flocks were heading east – likely in search of open water and food as the lands further north remain ice and snow bound. 

There are plenty of robins, turkey vultures, grackles, and blackbirds about and we have also seen sandhill cranes and blue herons. The sun is getting stronger and the snow continues to recede.  The birds are telling us that warmer weather is coming!

We experienced the heaviest sap flows to this point in the season on Tuesday and Wednesday and were busy making amber grade syrup.  The winds and snow squalls on Wednesday evening were dramatic and a few branches came down on pipelines requiring inspection and repairs. 

Looking at the forecast, it looks like the sap will be running well.  We are open daily from 10 to 4 with our trails, Shanty Men and Kettle Boys all operating.  There is still plenty of snow in the woods, so we recommend people wear winter footwear and dress accordingly.  We are celebrating Maple Weekend as well.

A tapping we will go…

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Our store and trails will be open on the weekend, March 4th and 5th from 10 to 4pm. After that, we’ll be open on the weekend until the maple season begins properly.

We hit the woods on Tuesday to install our taps for the 2023 season. During the stretch of unseasonably mild weather that we had over the past two weeks the sap was running. With the return of cold weather, we are now on a normal path to the start of maple syrup production in early to mid-march.  If warmer winters become the norm, we may have to tap earlier, around the beginning for February, to catch all of the major sap runs.

Back to tapping trees.  Every year, a new tap hole must be drilled in the tree. There have been significant changes over the past 50 years in the tools and equipment used to tap trees and gather sap. 

The first and most important change has been from buckets to pipelines.  Pipelines greatly reduce labour in the collection of sap as well as the need to drive heavy equipment through the sugar bush when the ground is soft in the spring.  This is much better economically and environmentally. 

Four members of the Fortune Farms maple tree tapping team standing out in the snow.

Secondly, the addition of vacuum pumps to create suction in the pipelines increases sap flow enabling consistent levels of production without any harmful effects on the trees. Additionally, vacuum helps to keep the tapholes open longer as sealed pipeline systems do not allow air into the tap holes.  Air dries out the taps restricts sap flow. 

Thirdly, and most recently, with pipelines and vacuum systems we have been able to significantly reduce the size of our tap holes and spiles.

When tapping with buckets and our first pipeline systems we drilled tap holes 7/16 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep.  We now drill holes 5/16 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep.  This reduces our impact on the surface of the tree by 35%. 

This is important as the column of wood above and below the taphole becomes stained and will no longer conduct sap.  This mean less wood is damaged by tapping, and more of tree’s stem or tapping surface remains productive.  Plus, those smaller and narrower tapholes require a lot less energy to drill. So, we no longer require gas powered drills, which are heavy, noisy and emit exhaust.

We find tapping enjoyable as we are working outside in the woods, spending our days hiking along the pipelines and visiting every tree.  Trees are assessed for their health and size which determines the number of taps. 

We start tapping healthy trees when they are 10 inches in diameter at chest height. A second tap is placed in a healthy tree when it is 18 inches in diameter and a third at 26 inches.

New tap holes are located at least six inches horizontally and 10 inches vertically from the previous year’s tap hole and we move around and up and down the stem over the years so that we are always tapping into fresh wood. 

We all have favourite trees and sections of the sugar bush and it is satisfying to see so many of our trees growing well and supplying us with volumes of sap.  Our largest tree is 42 inches in diameter and is estimated to be around 400 years old! 

Forests of trees of this size and age are rare and it is remarkable to consider that old have been tapped for maple syrup for well over 100 years. 

We look forward to seeing you at Fortune Farms when we open this coming weekend, March 4th and 5th from 10am to 4pm!

 Preparing for the 2023 Syrup Season

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We are excited to start our 2023 maple blog!

Time sure does fly by.  We have been very busy with the farm and our family over the past months.  Now with warmer weather upon us, we are quickly preparing for syrup season.

Sherry Fortune and helpers putting lines back up in one of the Derecho damaged areas. Great snowshoeing!

As we reported in May, the Derecho storm crossed our home farm.  Many large trees were uprooted or broken and about a third of our pipeline system was damaged.  By August, tree growth had slowed so we went to work with our chainsaws and forestry equipment and cleaned up the downed and damaged trees allowing us to safely access the pipelines.  Damaged lines have been replaced and our system is set and ready to go for the upcoming season.  We lost over 100 of our large maples and we have been able to replace the production from these trees by adding new taps on others that have grown to be of tapping size (10 inches in diameter). This is a benefit of managing a forest so that it contains trees of all ages.

The unusually warm winter weather that we have experienced to date in February has us thinking that maple season may start earlier than normal. New holes must be drilled in each tree every year and we like to do the drilling or ”tapping” just before the weather warms up, in the latter part of February.  This year there is little frost in the ground beneath the snow in the woods so the trees will be able to draw water through their roots freely when sap flow weather conditions arrive.  We are excited, optimistic, hustling about the woods, and looking forward to a productive season!

The Kettle Boys and the Shanty Men are also anxious to get back into the sugar bush and they will be joining us once the sap starts to flow.

We are celebrating 50 years of maple production at Fortune Farms. Ray and Ruth bought the farm in the summer of 1972 and made their first syrup here in 1973.  To celebrate our 50th season, we have developed a commemorative label featuring Ruth’s original artwork from 1973. We hope that you will share this milestone with us by visiting the farm.

We welcome orders through our website or by calling the farm.  We will let you know when your order is ready and look forward to sharing our experiences on our blog throughout maple season.

Tapping Underway

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With over a foot or 30 cm of snow, snowshoes are needed to move about the sugar bush this year. Snow in some parts of New Brunswick is over ten feet or 300 cm and we are glad we don’t have to contend with those conditions. It’s a reminder of the winter of 1971-72 when we had snow up to the eaves. We were able to tap the trees that year but almost needed a ladder to remove the spiles after the snow melted.

The next full moon is March 18 and this will be the “sugar” moon. Over the years we have noticed that sap flow does seem to some degree to follow the moon cycles. The Farmer’s Almanac forecasts fair weather and moderating temperatures the first week of March. So we expect to be making syrup by the first or second week of March.

Over the years we have found it’s best to be ready to start by the first of March. These traditional forecasting methods are right about 50% of the time. They have to be right, sometimes, to keep the folklore alive.

With the easing of Covid restrictions in Ontario our camp and trails will be open to the public. Capacity restrictions will apply indoors and social distancing outdoors. We are looking forward to once again welcoming visitors.

Joel Fortune and dog Maple out helping to tap maple trees at Fortune Farms sugarbush
Joel Fortune and Maple helping tap the trees

The 2022 Maple Season

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Maple Season is fast approaching.   We thank everyone for your support throughout the pandemic. We have missed the opportunity to mingle with our visitors  and we hope this year  to be open this year with necessary Covid protocols.  Please follow our blog for regular updates as the season progresses.

This will be our 49th year making syrup on this farm.  Where do the years go? 

Our forests are proving to be resilient and with careful management continue to be healthy and vigorous despite the ice storms, windstorms, droughts and hordes of caterpillars that we have encountered over the years  Areas that were fields are now forests and seedlings have grown to become tappable trees.  It is truly remarkable and gratifying when we consider just how much our trees have grown over the years!

The long-range forecast looks “normal” so we will start tapping during the last week of February, and we typically gather our first runs of sap in the second week of March.  Plans change in a hurry if warm weather arrives.

Last year we introduced an online ordering system which worked well.  We invite you to place orders anytime for our 2022 crop online or by calling the farm at 613 256 5216. 

Fortune Farms in winter

Updates on Facebook

During the maple season, watch for updates on our Facebook page and here.

Season Over for 2021

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Warm May-like weather seems to have arrived early this year. Such a contrast from last year when we had a long, drawn out and cool March and April.

Tuesday was our last day of making syrup for this year. The maple buds are now well advanced and the trees are taking on a greenish hue. The frogs are singing, another sure sign that spring is here.

The Wood frog in the picture was spotted in our beaver pond by Jim Robertson our local photographer.

We have had a fair season with production a bit above our long term average. Hopefully enough to fill our orders until next year.

Our camp is open daily from 9 to 4 with the usual Covid restrictions. We also have curbside pickup if preferred.

Perfect sap weather

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Warm days and cool nights makes for perfect sap weather and the sap is running. After a few minor glitches all the equipment is performing well and we have collected enough sap for our first production run of the season.

The picture shows the first syrup running into the filter tank on Thursday morning. The next step is to do a final filtering on our filter press prior to packing.

The sap sweetness is less than 2% sugar.  As a result the sap to syrup ratio is about 50 to 1 rather than the more normal 40 to 1. This makes a big difference in the amount of fuel required to produce syrup.

With the reverse osmosis machine we can compensate by concentrating longer. The low sugar content of first run sap is typical as the tree roots and much of the tree trunk are still frozen. The sap we are collecting has been stored on the outer rings of the tree trunk. The sweetness will improve as fresh sap is drawn up from the roots.

That first taste of fresh syrup this morning made all the tapping effort and equipment start up well worth while. Now for some fresh baked bread and fresh maple syrup for a real delicious dessert at dinner this evening.

Sap in the filter tank at Fortune Farms
Running into the filter tank

The 2021 Season Begins

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Welcome to our blog for 2021.We are pleased to announce that we will be operating again this year. We are very thankful to our many customers who have used our curb pick up, delivery and shipping services to purchase our products. Last year we made a bumper crop of maple syrup and aside from our usual inventory it is all sold. Covid 19 has in part been the reason for this as people are cooking at home and using more than their usual supply of maple syrup. We would be quite happy to go back to normal and be rid of this virus. Maple syrup and maple products are such a treat that they help to compensate for being shut in and so restricted in our normal activities.

It is too early to say if our camp will be open for visitors. We will of course maintain our curb pick up and other services and we may be able to open the trails.

The Kettle Boys and Shanty Men plan to operate but it is unlikely that they will be able to entertain visitors. Masks and social distancing will still be in force during the March-April season.

Our photographer friend, Jim Robertson, took some pictures in the sugar bush last week. The snow cap on the log gives a good idea of the snow accumulation to date.

Our largest, very tall maple tree is still dormant waiting for warm weather to wake up and once again provide a bounteous flow of sap.

10 Plus Inches of Snow
The Fortune Giant

Do you need syrup now?

We still have Amber, Dark and some Golden maple syrup in stock. We are still six to eight weeks away from fresh syrup so if you are running low we can provide a fresh supply to tide you over. Please contact us if you’d like to order some.