Learning that Sticks

by Rob Terry, Exective Director

For some, talk of the weather is considered banal; filler for the ineloquent. If true, we’re all a bit of a bore, as data indicates that the average person spends around 8 minutes a day talking about what it’s like outside, and what tomorrow might bring. With an average life expectancy in the US of around 77 years, that means that the typical American will spend 3,747 hours discussing the ins and outs of temperature and precipitation over the course of their life. For those of us here at Merck Forest, that number seems a little low— the weather is a near-constant topic of conversation.

Seasonal fluctuations define our work. When the grasses in the pastures reach 12-16 inches in height, we cut hay. When the ground freezes, we work in the woods. When the spring temperatures dip into the 20s overnight and rise into the 40s during the day, we sugar. Ahh, sugaring… could there be a process more intricately intertwined with the weather’s whims? Temperature, wind speed and direction, snowpack, barometric pressure, even atmospheric conditions must be taken into consideration. Thankfully, we haven’t been left to figure it all out on our own.

Those who came before us left clues, like “wind from the east, sap runs least; wind from the west, sap runs best.” Today, researchers at institutions such as UVM’s Proctor Maple Research Center use state of the art equipment and cutting-edge methods to determine how maple producers can work in concert with seasonal fluctuations to sustainably maximize their yield. Sugaring is, without a doubt, equal parts science, art, tradition and effort. In this instance, that effort yields liquid gold.

The production goal for the year, or crop, at Merck Forest is 1,000 gallons of syrup. While we keep that objective squarely in focus throughout the season, as an educational non-profit, how we get there matters as much or more than if we get there. Ultimately, the best measure of our success is the number of learners we are able to engage in the process. Learning about sugaring at Merck Forest does not involve sitting in a classroom watching educators cycle through slides as they explain the ins and outs of the operation. Instead, MFFC’s field educators lead learners into the sugar bush and sap house where they’re able to see and engage in the process in real time.

The simple act of hiking into the woods to check lines teaches lessons that can’t be fully realized watching an on-line video. In this instance, seeing and being do not equate. We know this in part thanks to the reflections we hear from folks that come into the woods with us during sugaring season. Invariably, when preparing volunteers to head out to the sugarbush for the day, the exorbitant cost of maple syrup is a hot topic. Without fail, by the time the crew breaks for lunch, exhausted from trudging through breakable crust and clambering around on steep, icy slopes, someone will quip that they can’t believe how producers “just give this stuff away.” Lessons like these, lessons that get beyond the basics and to the heart of the matter, simply cannot be learned without immersing oneself in the experience.

This year, MFFC’s resource management and education teams have worked hard to create a variety of opportunities for interested participants to learn about sugaring:

• Kits & Cubs, a preschooler and parent program, provided opportunities for our youngest learners to explore sugaring through games and art projects, and the immensely popular sugar-on-snow.

• Field trips from a host of schools have provided elementary-aged students the opportunity to experience the entire process from tap-to-table

• An eight-week, four-hour/week elective course gave students from a local middle school the opportunity to put in some character building hard work while applying lessons learned in math and science classes.

• A capstone course for undergraduate students in the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources brought a dozen students on-board to assess the operation, research best practice and make recommendations on how MFFC can enhance the process in order to continue to increase its ecological sustainability.

• Maple Meet-up, a new twice-weekly all-access tour of the sugarbush and sugarhouse, provided an intimate space for small groups to experience the ins and outs of the process (and sample the goods, of course).

• Lastly, our annual Maple Open House brought together visitors of all ages from around the region to celebrate this North Country tradition.

In addition to these diverse opportunities, our resource management team addressed a long-standing challenge this year— the relative inaccessibility of the operation. Historically, Merck Forest has had two commercial scale sugaring operations on property, a 20,000 tap lease through which a regional producer collects sap that is trucked and then boiled in east Rupert and a 3,000 tap operation that is managed entirely in-house. The in-house operation is a relatively complex affair. A vacuum pump creates pressure in the lines that bring sap from the trees to the sap house. Before being boiled, the sap is run through a reverse osmosis filter (RO) that separates out the molecules that do not have a sugar bonded to them leaving behind a concentrated solution. That concentrated solution is then further consolidated in a relatively large and complex 4 ft by 12 ft evaporator. Due to the relative complexity of the operation, our crew often jokes that no one ever leaves the sugar house thinking to themselves “I’m going to go home and try this in my garage.”

In all seriousness, this has been a concern of ours in the past. Making maple syrup requires neither a degree in mechanical engineering nor a three-quarter-of-a-milliondollar investment in high-end equipment. In fact, all one needs is sap, heat, and patience. With that in mind, and the hope of inspiring more of our visitors to hang a couple of buckets and see what happens, we tapped 20 maples near the Visitor Center and along the DiscoveryTrail. With help from visitors, staff, and volunteers we regularly gathered sap from these twenty buckets and boiled it on a small home-scale evaporator with a manageable 30” x 20” pan. It seemed that this effort had the desired effect, as many of the visitors that observed, and participated, in this process asked questions that we don’t often here up in the Sap House, like “Do you know where I could get some buckets and taps?” and “Is this something that I could try on my gas grill at home?”

To everyone out there that grabbed a few buckets and gave it a go, we hope you had a productive and enjoyable sugaring season. We’ve put up about 450 gallons of syrup, and things are winding down up here on the mountain. Our 1,000-gallon target is looking... ambitious. Long stretches below freezing in March coupled with an early April warm-up combined to make this a quiet year for us. Thankfully, while the destination may not have lined up with our hopes and expectations, the journey was fabulous. We engaged more visitors, volunteers, and students in the process than ever before, which, at the end of the day, is why we’re making syrup in the first place.