March 25th and April 2nd were not good days. In the eight years we’ve lived here we’ve never seen wind like this. We were thinking about shutting down for the year before the first storm, the damage helped us make that decision. Then just a week after the first storm we were hit with another equally bad one, this time taking power out for over three days! We’re just now catching up with the damage around the sugar shack and houses, it will take all spring/summer to fix what’s in the woods. Fortunately nobody was hurt and we’ll be able to fix everything. Here are some photos from around the house.

Well folks, we’ve heard the peepers and the call of spring and sunshine! It’s safe to say that the 2023 maple season has come to an end in these parts so it’s time to share our stats as well as our slideshow.

We boiled 6,000 gallons of syrup this year from 437,000 gallons of sap collected, which is more than we did each of the past two years. This winter was definitely different, with much less snow. Secondly, unlike the last two years, there was sap flow in February, allowing us to have our first boil earlier in the year.

It’s a good thing the season is over because we had some crazy winds here over the past two weekends that caused dozens of trees to fall on our properties as well as a loss of power. We’ll have some cleanup to do this spring along with untapping the trees so they can heal for next season.

If you’d like to see a slideshow of this season, check out the video below.

Russells BBQ has been busy creating new sauces and one of those just happens to use our maple syrup. Introducing “Pymatuning Gold”, a spicy maple mustard sauce that leaves you wanting more! We grabbed ourselves some of this sauce as soon as it was available so you can now order it from our website here.