Youngsters bitten by sugaring bug

Some kids are born with maple in their veins. Sage Roys, 17, and C.J. Crowley, 18, both seniors at Springfield High School, hope that the 2010 sugaring season is not over yet.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100325/NEWS02/3250377/1003/NEWS02

Published March 25, 2010 in the Rutland Herald

Youngsters bitten by sugaring bug

By SUSAN SMALLHEER STAFF WRITER

SPRINGFIELD – Some kids are born with maple in their veins.

Sage Roys, 17, and C.J. Crowley, 18, both seniors at Springfield High School, hope that the 2010 sugaring season is not over yet.

While winter-weary Vermonters have exulted in the unseasonably early spring weather, sugarmakers have been sorely disappointed and frustrated.

So far the Springfield friends since childhood have made about 63 gallons at their North Springfield sugarhouse, thanks to sap production from about 800 taps, including about 300 from a new sugarbush they set up in Weathersfield near Wellwood Orchard.

"I love the cold and it's my favorite time of year," said C.J. Crowley.

Both teens are Level 3 students at the River Valley Technical Center's natural resources and horticulture program, and they said they used their forestry skills to cut the sugarbush, removing the hemlock and beech trees, to open up the woods to the remaining maple trees.

Using a combination of classroom learning, and watching veteran sugarmakers, the two friends have been hard at work in the woods.

They set up a plastic pipeline in the Weathersfield sugarbush, and plan to expand it next year, according to Roys, a quiet but dedicated sugarmaker.

Roys and Crowley both said sugaring is in their blood – Roys' father is a sugarmaker and Crowley said his grandfather used to tap trees and sell the sap to another sugarmaker.

"What's really amazing is that they have done it all themselves," said their teacher, John Harmer. "They did it totally independent of me, it was truly on their own."

The two boys say they love being outside in the cold weather, and sugarmaking is their almost-favorite activity. They said sugaring is a lot of work, and Roys in particular says it isn't a money-making project, since he will just put what money he did make back into his operation.

Roys said he's been sugaring for the past six years, and he said he hopes to expand his current 2-by-6-foot sugaring pan next year and put on an addition to his sugarhouse on French Meadow Road.

Roys says his operation is a traditional one – a wood-fired arch under the pan, and no technology such as reverse-osmosis machine to remove water from the sap, or a vacuum system to suck the sap out of the tree.

The two boys collected the sap from 265 buckets, with the balance of their taps in plastic tubing in the new sugarbush.

Harmer said the two boys used the most advanced methods in setting up the new sugarbush, using the new design sap spouts, which are designed to minimize the bacteria contamination that can cause the trees to dry up and stop sap flow.

"They used the latest techniques to work with the tree and maximize flow," said Harmer, who said he teaches the basics of sugaring to his high school students. The high school students work with both Mooreland Farm and Barlow's Sugarhouse, both in Springfield. "They pick a hillside and thin it," said Harmer, using the principles of "The Game of Logging," the Bible in forestry practices.

Roys and Crowley said that they finished tapping in late February, only a few days before they started boiling on Feb. 21. It was an early season, they said, and Roys said they tapped early because of a sixth sense that it was going to be an early – and short – season.

Harmer said sugar makers either take a "real aggressive or a real conservative" approach to sugaring, and the young sugar makers struck a middle ground.

Roys said this season has been particularly erratic and he said he knew of one Windsor County sugar maker with 7,000 taps who had only made 200 gallons of syrup so far. He tapped late, he said, and missed the early runs.

Roys has the sugaring bug bad. In addition to a bigger pan and sugarhouse, he and Crowley are going to expand the sugarbush, from the current four acres to 10 acres.

The 300 taps in the Weathersfield sugarbush has produced "really good," he said.

"They have more hours in the sugarhouse than I do," said Harmer.

After graduation, Crowley expects to work in heavy equipment, and Roys is going to do property management jobs, waiting for sugar season.

Roys said he spent about $3,000 on equipment and expenses this year, and made about $2,000 so far, selling his syrup to Bascom's Sugarhouse, a large wholesaler in Acworth, N.H.

"You've got to love it to do it," he says.