April 2, 2004
Syrup making winding down
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
The sweet but time-consuming task of making maple syrup is winding down this week for some area families who tap their property's trees as a hobby.
After an intense month of syrup making, with prolific sap sporting a high sugar content, the Vreeland family of Garfield Township is boiling their last batch this week.
This year, their 30th of production, Don and Martha Vreeland are passing the baton to the next generation. Daughter Val Vreeland took over responsibility for the syrup this spring. The couple has been tapping trees since they moved to the home; their five children grew up emptying buckets, stoking fires and canning syrup every spring. With the children now grown, the parents are easing out of the loop - mostly.
"Mom does the inside work," said Val Vreeland, referring to the utility room production facility where her mother finishes boiling the syrup on a propane cooker, then strains and cans their harvest.
Vreeland tapped 40 trees this year and has been going all month as spring brought ideal weather conditions: nights below freezing and warm days. Emptying the buckets from the trees takes an hour every day. She pours the raw sap in 55-gallon plastic drums and keeps it there until she can boil it.
The family uses a shallow stainless steel pan, made 30 years ago by the not-yet-famous artisan Bob Purvis, for boiling. Vreeland stokes the fires all day long, cooking each batch for three days to reduce it to the desired consistency.
"It's been non-stop this year, a bumper crop," she noted. "It's been a struggle to keep up with it. It's a lot of work, but the payoff is sweet rewards."
This is the fourth spring that the Maurer family of Blair Township has tapped trees in their yard. Even though their home is situated in a subdivision, it backs up to Hoosier Valley and boasts a healthy second growth forest that includes many sugar maples.
Half of their one-acre lot slopes steeply downhill into the valley and, after a few seasons of hauling innumerable gallons of sap uphill, they decided to embrace both technology and gravity.
"We now use tubes and a plastic spout in each tree with a nipple on it," said Kurt Maurer. "The series of tubes all run downhill to a sugar shack I've built at the bottom. That's where we do everything."
With this year's ideal conditions, Maurer expects to make six gallons of finished syrup from more than 200 gallons of sap. He cans the majority of the syrup in quart mason jars for family use, putting some in pint jars for gifts. His wife, Brenda, makes up gift baskets for family and friends at Christmas, with their homemade maple syrup as the centerpiece.
The intense flavor of the homemade syrup, which varies subtly from year to year, receives mixed reviews.
"Some family members grew up on store syrup so they don't care for it while others can't get enough," he noted.
The Vreelands also give syrup away as gifts, but spread most of it among the siblings and parents. One year, they made special labels for their jars - designating their operation the Lone Tree Farm. The family views the syrup as liquid gold and does not lightly pass it around.
"We ran out last year but this year we'll have more than enough," said Val Vreeland. "And we'll probably hoard it a little better."
While hobbyists, the Maurers are serious about their syrup-making time. Kurt Maurer had a 12-inch by 12-inch cooktop built over the cooker in his sugar shack so he and the family can enjoy pancakes and sausages with syrup during production time. He also involves the couple's three children in all aspects of the process every spring.
"The other thing I like about doing this is that it connects you with the Earth, the outside," Maurer said. "Just like a farmer, who has his own beans or corn on the table, you have your own maple syrup on the table.
"We're so dependent on everyone else for our food, there's an excitement in being able to produce something for yourself," he added.