Although he began this spring, we would like to introduce our newest team member, Chuck Shank!

Chuck’s roots with Nova Maple go back to 2013, when he helped Jake boil sap over an open fire during the company’s early days as a hobby. He later spent several years in Oregon with his wife as she pursued her education and career. They returned to Pennsylvania in 2024 and welcomed a baby girl into their family. After occasional visits to the farm, Chuck decided to trade his white-collar job for work that brought him back outdoors. Having grown up in the area, hunting and working on his parents’ horse farm, he’s always felt at home in nature. Though he holds a degree in nuclear medicine, he’s happiest in the woods—and he’s excited to be part of the Nova Maple Syrup team.

One of the most common places for our mainlines to freeze is at the connection between the mainline and the wet/dry lines. We call these connections “boosters,” a name that comes from the old-style cylinders that were once used to connect mainlines together.

Our property only has about 60 feet of total vertical drop, and some of our taps are more than half a mile from the pumphouse. That means we don’t have much room for error when it comes to maintaining proper slope.

We recently finished upgrading all 25 of our boosters. Check out the pictures comparing the old and new designs. The new setup should help eliminate some of our freeze-ups by separating the ball valve from the tee and, more importantly, adding another 4–8 inches of fall at a very critical point in the line.

We also added a loop saddle that connects the mainline above the ball valve directly to the dry line. This gives us another simple way to check for vacuum leaks. By closing the ball valve, we can watch how air transfers through the lateral line. A tight line with no leaks should produce a nice, slow transfer of air, while even a moderate leak will quickly send bursts of sap through the lateral, often accompanied by an audible hiss.

This setup doesn’t replace our Datacer monitoring system, but it complements it by giving us another quick and easy way to identify leaks in the woods. Between better drainage and easier leak detection, these new boosters should help keep our mainlines flowing more reliably when the temperatures start dropping.

After our last pole barn we promised we wouldn’t add any more buildings, so instead we built a lean-to along the side of our warehouse. It provides covered outdoor parking for our truck, freeing up valuable space inside.

Summer is also the perfect time to catch up on maintenance and tackle smaller projects. This year, we gave all of our aging wooden doors/windows a fresh coat of paint, helping them look great while protecting them for years to come.