12/18/2024
Early season pricing is out for 2025. Bale wrap in particular has a better than normal end-of-year discount, good through 12/27/24
Wrisley Bros. Farms
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Honestly, honesty is what sets us apart.
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8473 Sudal Hill Rd
Boonville, NY
13309
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Wrisley Brothers Farm
A long long time ago, Russ and Beth bought a farm in the busy little town of Boonville. Though Russ had a business going, he always knew the farm would become part and parcel of everyday life. In 1996 hay was being produced on the farm and sold to brokers. In 2003 a truck was purchased and they started trucking their hay to New England. More equipment was added, additional land was leased and more hay was baled and sold. In 2004 some maple syrup was attempted with so-so results. By this time, the former business was all but folded up and put away so we focused on the farm - making even more hay. We needed to diversify. In 2009, 88 gallons of maple syrup was made with some better success. A couple of years later a couple of Angus cows showed up so we rented the neighbors’ barn and pasture. As you know, cows are like dogs and cats, but instead of puppies and kittens, you end up with calves. Calves grow up into more cows than you can chase when they get out!
Then we tried to grow and fine-tune our operation. One of the attempts was to be organically certified. I guess that's working for those making milk and vegetables but the organic corn and organic hay for cows just didn’t pan out. As it turns out, our farm location doesn’t provide the degree-days for corn or soybean yields and organic hay just doesn’t command a marginal benefit to cover the cost and hassle of being certified. So then we tried a drying tunnel for making premium quality, early cut hay. Great idea but VERY expensive to produce really nice early cut hay. Sure, there was lots of interest in it but we just couldn’t justify the additional cost and lower margin. Perhaps it was the long winter hours and drinking coffee or the picking up hay bales into the wee hours of the morning (yes, we saw the sun coming up more than a few times while picking up hay bales) that got us mulling over the efficiency and productivity our hay operation. So we smashed the piggy bank and bought a large square baler. But one big problem remained - hay we couldn’t sell. Everybody that makes hay has some that isn’t stored right or just doesn’t cure right and, well, just can’t or shouldn’t sell it. That's when the cows started to look like a herd. Then we got onto ‘baleage’. That is what’s in those gargantuan marshmallows at the edge of the field. It’s grass that has been baled up at 50 to 60 percent moisture and allowed to ferment anaerobically -- boy, you should see them cows eat that baleage!!! That’s what makes the great tasting marbled beef.
Now lets talk about those 88 gallons of syrup. As it turns out, with maple sap at around 1.5% sugar (which is what we get on this farm), you need about 57 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. That translates into well over 5000 gallons of sap or well over a thousand trips up the hill with a mostly full 5 gallon pail of sap. When you get to the top of the hill, there's only about three and half gallons left in the pail. So, like any intelligent person, we decided to carry two pails. I’m sure the judges would still give us high marks due to the difficulty of carrying 80 pounds of sap through 4 feet of snow on snowshoes in bone-chilling temperatures (wet sticky clothing not-with-standing) up Mount Crumpet, the steepest side even the Grinch would avoid -- testimony to the benefits of child labor. Augment all this with processing and storage ignorance, we ended up with some that, well, didn’t look as good as it did when it was bottled. Of course, you never know this until you uncap it. Our apologies and appreciation goes to our friends who opened up a jug and discovered less than perfection and never complained.
The bees, oh, the honey bees. I’m still befuddled why thousands of bees in a 3 hive body hive full of capped honey for winter food would abscond the hive on Thanksgiving. Dumb, just dumb. Female leadership? At one time we had, I’m guessing, 15 or so hives. We went into our last season with eight or ten hives and by January, all had left or died out. I know of no other business where the essence of your production capacity dies or leaves. They are truly more frustrating than cows. I refer you to the last sentence of the first paragraph. All the bee equipment was put up over the barn for LONG term storage.
