First Day of Spring!

The calendar tells us Spring is here, but the ground is still well covered with snow in Central Maine. The cattle are enjoying the increased sunshine and warmer (for the most part!) daytime temps that have graced us these last couple of weeks.
This time of year at the ranch means... waiting for the snow to recede so repairs to fencing can be done, taking the  snow blower off the tractor, waiting for the ground to dry up enough for harrowing in order to break up the winter manure and waste hay in the pasture, starting seeds/repotting seedlings for the garden ...BUT  the sweetest thing we get to do this time of year is collect sap and boil it down for our yearly supply of maple syrup.  We tap a small stand of maples along the outside of our fence line, that way the curious cattle won't disturb the lines and buckets. We collect enough sap to get us between 2.5-3 gallons of maple syrup. We cook with it, bake with it, use it as a sweetener for tea and yogurt and of course pour over pancakes and french toast. Last year we tapped our maples on February 19th, but due to the colder temps and deep snow this year we tapped them just last week. Hopefully there will be enough sap collected to boil down our first batch over the fire this weekend.  I love driving by the large sugaring operations with their well maintained stands of sugar maples, seeing the long lengths of tubing and the farmers hauling big tanks of sap. Sure sign it's late winter/early spring. A fine time of year!

For the rest of March, if you reserve a quarter or half of our grassfed beef (ready fall of 2019) we'll give you a free pint of local, Maine made maple syrup. Call or email us to reserve your half or quarter. 

The cattle eating and enjoying the afternoon sun today

Boiling sap as the cattle look on

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