Croagh Patrick Maple Works and Agroforestry

Croagh Patrick Maple Works and Agroforestry At Croagh Patrick, we are starting to explore maple syrup production in a very small scale, in Gilmer County, West Virginia.

We run the website for the WV Maple Syrup Producers Association. Please visit their page for more information about that organizat

Season recap courtesy of SapTapApp
02/22/2024

Season recap courtesy of SapTapApp

Today is our last full day in Tanner. My nephews left a week and a half ago but my friend Charlotte came on Friday to he...
02/21/2024

Today is our last full day in Tanner. My nephews left a week and a half ago but my friend Charlotte came on Friday to help me.

It was not a VERY good maple season, but "thick and fast they came at last", they being the sap molecules. In a really good year I could pick up 16 gallons of sap or more a day, but we were happy to get 11 yesterday. We added that to the almost-sap of the day before and I'm currently finishing up 15.75 gallons of sap, to be almost 4 bottles. I expect more sap today as it went into the 20s unexpectedly. The forecast was that I would get maybe a couple gallons which is hardly worth cooking. But now I expect we'll get enough to make a bottle or two.

I am having a deck built. They need to add the rails but I was able to use it last night. It is such a relief because it was kinda treacherous and muddy out there with big steps down from the door and then to the ground. I'm too old for that. So happy!

Finally got some more sap to cook! Just 2 more bottles but it's good!
02/17/2024

Finally got some more sap to cook! Just 2 more bottles but it's good!

Well... Today I singed my hair when lighting my cooker. I forgot to pony up my hair but maybe if I did I'd have burned m...
02/09/2024

Well... Today I singed my hair when lighting my cooker. I forgot to pony up my hair but maybe if I did I'd have burned my face! My stupid lighter takes a few clicks and I get my face closer and closer each time... So I keep smelling my hair thinking the sap is bad! My hair still looks good though , so no major damage.

I think the sap is good too. Didn't get enough to finish off as it would only make one bottle but I have a pot of almost-syrup in the fridge. Hoping to have more in the buckets of sap in the morning. Then it is going to be too warm. SapTapApp says the end of next week will be better but I don't know. If my tap holes don't close up, maybe. Also I find that when the temperatures are only in the low 40s and the sun isn't strong, I don't get much sap in these hills. Time will tell.

I slipped out for a lovely ebike ride today. Here is a nearby rock formation. Pictures don't do the rock walls justice.

We tapped two additional trees which are doing moderately well. Lloyd, my big tree below the house, is doing very well b...
02/08/2024

We tapped two additional trees which are doing moderately well. Lloyd, my big tree below the house, is doing very well but the other trees always lag behind him. Christina is being stubbornly selfish. Is that a reflection on her namesake? The trees to the side of the house on our cliff trail are doing very well. Usually downhill outperforms, so things may shift as more sunlight reaches down below this month.

I have finished 6 8-oz bottles. If I can do 6 a week for the next two weeks, I'll call it a very good year!

I'm able to keep up with the flow right now because the weather is so nice for cooking but only moderately good for sap. We are supposed to have a warmup for the next 3 days so I hope the taps don't dry up.

Our routine is to collect sap at 1 or 2 pm, start cooking it down, and collect another batch at dusk. I cook it down outside (a friend lent me a bigger pot so now it goes a bit faster) and then if there is enough to make more than 2 bottles, I finish up inside. Otherwise I store the almost-syrup in the friedge until another day.

I tapped 19 trees today. I may tap another one or two. We got down around 9am and it was still frozen. That's a good sig...
02/05/2024

I tapped 19 trees today. I may tap another one or two. We got down around 9am and it was still frozen. That's a good sign because by 11am it was so sunny and over 40 degrees. The sap started flowing. I finished my first collection at 2pm, just to make sure all was well. All but one tree was running. I collected 5.5 gallons of sap so I'm going to fire up the cooker now and try to stay on top of it while the weather is so nice. My nephews were here this morning to help tap. They are probably close to being able to do the tapping and collecting themselves. I wish they were here to help me set up the cooker so they get a handle on that too. They went to see if the golf course in Glenville is open, and then to do some shopping. I'm guessing they are getting some golf in! Gorgeous day!

So my first comedy of errors. I went down alone to get the sap. I got about a quarter of a gallon from the first two trees and I was so excited to get down to the next one which I could see had at least 3/4 of a gallon. I tripped and fell and lost the first two trees' take. A day in the life of a clumsy maple producer!.

Through a comedy of errors I have 4 bottles of dark syrup and I expect one bottle of golden syrup with, if I'm lucky, a ...
03/07/2023

Through a comedy of errors I have 4 bottles of dark syrup and I expect one bottle of golden syrup with, if I'm lucky, a 4 oz jar. I did give my nephews 7oz of golden syrup. If I could stay one more week I might make a few more bottles but it's not worth it to me. I'll have to come up with other Christmas and birthday gifts! Haha! By my calculations I should have had about 9 bottles (8oz each). The off-flavor was quite a learning experience for me!

Timing is so important and what I've come to understand is that I have a microclimate that runs cooler at night than expected by several degrees. The day time highs are usually fairly accurate but it can take longer to warm up. That means a 34 degree night might be 28 and sap might run, but if the projected high is only 40 or 45, it won't run long because it will take so long for the trees to thaw.

I need to set up my own weather station. I found one through Weather Underground that is better than the generic Weather Channel forecast for current temperature, but the forecast is still the same. Wrong. I don't know how to fix that without a meteorology degree!

One last photo of my final night time cook. Last night was so beautiful. Buster and I saw Jupiter, with Venus above her in the west, and Mars straight up overhead, a little red light. A little later the full moon came above the hill to the east and was framed by lovely cloud formations. We didn't see the Milky Way because by the time it was dark enough the moon was out, but it was so peaceful and special.

I am currently boiling down a whopping 4.5 gallons of sap. I had hoped for a big day. In years past I have collected 12 ...
03/06/2023

I am currently boiling down a whopping 4.5 gallons of sap. I had hoped for a big day. In years past I have collected 12 to 16 gallons of sap a day and been overwhelmed. This year, due to the warm weather and the late start, I'm underwhelmed. But at least I'm testing out my new cooking pot, which is smaller than the old one, and I will also hopefully not make off flavored syrup this time. It sure smells good! Tomorrow I will pull the taps and clean up. There is good maple weather coming up but I need to get home to the rest of my family in Maryland! I think my current taps are starting to close up anyway.

I managed to salvage the off-flavored syrup. It is stronger than I usually make but it is good.Last night it got down to...
03/05/2023

I managed to salvage the off-flavored syrup. It is stronger than I usually make but it is good.

Last night it got down to 28 so I expected sap flow. But by 3:30 there was only a gallon. I bought a new cooking pot so I guess I'll get enough to test it out! I will check sap around 6pm and hope it freezes again tonight.

I think there have been enough growing degree days that my tap holes are starting to plug. I am calling it quits Tuesday for sure. It's been fun even if it has been stressful with the off-flavor.

I'm crushed. The 3.5 bottles of syrup I made the other day are what they call "off flavor". I don't really understand be...
03/04/2023

I'm crushed. The 3.5 bottles of syrup I made the other day are what they call "off flavor". I don't really understand because it smelled fine cooking and tasted good as I was bottling it. But I opened the half bottle to reprocess it into a new batch and it smelled funny. It tastes okay but not my usual golden delicious. It smelled like what they call metabolism to me, which can be cooked out, so I added it to the new sap and I'm going to try reprocessing it. You cook it hotter than normal and then add some water and cook it back to normal syrup. I hope that works because I'm so sad. All this work, for very little yield, and the yield is bad.

03/02/2023

I collected about 7.5 gallons of sap today. It's the most I've gotten but I was hoping for more. It was nearly 80 today, though it was below freezing last night. I don't think it will go below freezing tonight.

On the other hand it is 10 degrees cooler here now than the weather channel app says. I found a closer station that more closely aligns with my microclimate and it's funny because the temp is 56 at 9pm. It says the temp will be 65 at 10pm... Because it probably gets the forecast from the same site as weather channel! So really this tells me I can never trust the forecast. I tried looking at one with an even higher elevation and it is still several degrees off. Several degrees can mean the difference between sap running and sap not running! That makes it frustrating. Even if I set up my own weather station I don't know if it will get the forecast more aligned if it gets the forecast from some central place and not from my own barometer etc. Sigh

I'm just going to hope I can get a little more sap before I leave Tuesday.

Well well well. It definitely got below freezing here last night and it is supposed to warm up quickly. I really need my...
03/01/2023

Well well well. It definitely got below freezing here last night and it is supposed to warm up quickly. I really need my own weather station because no weather channel location comes close to what happens here! A local weather station in Weather Underground is a bit better. Anyway, I'm hoping for decent sap flow today after all. I want to get out on my e-bike too.

In looking at next week, the forecast is good for maple, but I really want to get back to my Maryland home. Buster and I miss the rest of the flock. I hate to leave sap in the buckets but it is what it is. My neighbor says he might have time to cook it down, or he might not.

So if I meet my goal of syrup production I'm going home by Wednesday, a week from now, at the latest.

I love being on my hill. I wish the rest of the clan came but they prefer to come in the late spring and summer.

03/01/2023

Really Almost Syrup almost done boiling with small frothy bubbles. If you let it go at this point it will boil over quickly. I stop it, test it in my hydrometer, and repeat. Usually it takes 3 times before the hydrometer floats on the line. I don't bother filtering at this point because I lose too much syrup and my loved ones know every drop is precious and they can deal with a few crystals and fine minerals. Though I filter well when it is thinner, I still label it as unfiltered, because I don't do the final filter.

Well, less than I hoped but more than I expected considering the weather forecast didn't match what really happened. It ...
03/01/2023

Well, less than I hoped but more than I expected considering the weather forecast didn't match what really happened. It got colder Sunday night than predicted. Lucky me! It wasn't gangbusters but it was something!

The temperature didn't drop below 40 last night but I guess it was cold enough to convince my trees to stop running. The...
02/28/2023

The temperature didn't drop below 40 last night but I guess it was cold enough to convince my trees to stop running. They weren't running this morning. I'm curious if anything comes out when the sun comes out today. I don't expect much. I think I have a couple days off and can ride my e-bike! I have to go to town this morning but I don't think I'll ride there. That might be too much for these old bones with all this traipsing over hill and dale. I did collect 2 gallons of residual sap from yesterday's run this morning. I took some morning pictures of the sugar bush. I have been cooking down the sap as it comes in. I'll see if more sap is coming this afternoon before finishing up what I have which was 13 gallons. Right now it is about a gallon of "almost syrup" and 2 gallons of fresh sap. I hope to get 4 bottles from this. Probably only 3. We'll see what the weekend brings.

02/27/2023

Today I am having a pretty good sap run, as hoped. It's not as big as it gets but so far I have collected 3.5 gallons which I added to yesterday's 3.5 gallons. I was able to cook it all down to "almost syrup" between raindrops. Now it is storming pretty hard out there. There should be a lull just before sunset and I will collect my last batch of sap and either refrigerate it or cook it down with the rest, weather permitting.

Despite the rain I sat outside and was mesmerized by the boiling sap! Eventually Buster and I went inside to watch it from the dining room window. Since my cooker is not covered I did get raindrops in it but I don't think it was enough to have much impact... Glad I got it in before the waves of rain coming down now though!

I got an unexpected frost with the temperature down to 29. It's not the ideal 25 but we are coming up on a warm spell so...
02/27/2023

I got an unexpected frost with the temperature down to 29. It's not the ideal 25 but we are coming up on a warm spell so I hope this was enough to keep the sap runnig and the tap holes open until it freezes again. Next weekend looks great but I don't trust the forecast as far as I can throw it!

I arrived on the farm on Wednesday. My nephews, the Davey Boys, arrived Thursday and helped me tap 20 trees. This is the...
02/26/2023

I arrived on the farm on Wednesday. My nephews, the Davey Boys, arrived Thursday and helped me tap 20 trees. This is their first exposure to the process. It was such a pleasure having them this weekend. They have left for home now and I'm sad.

We only had 3 gallons of sap to cook yesterday but I was able to show them the process end to end and they had 7 oz of new syrup to take home, along with a bottle of last year's syrup.

Meanwhile we met a mountain dulcimer maker and my nephew bought a dulcimer, never having touched one before, and he learned one of the folk songs my grandfather passed down. I'm very proud of him and he is so happy about his purchase. We enjoyed spending half the day with the dulcimer maker! He is a cousin by marriage twice over so that was interesting. He knew my parents from church too, and remembered Grandma. But he must have been very young when he knew grandma because she died in 1988 and he was born around 1980! 🙂

Anyway it has been an interesting and productive visit so far.

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2700 3rd Run Road
Glenville, WV
26351

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Really Almost Syrup almost done boiling with small frothy bubbles. If you let it go at this point it will boil over quickly. I stop it, test it in my hydrometer, and repeat. Usually it takes 3 times before the hydrometer floats on the line. I don't bother filtering at this point because I lose too much syrup and my loved ones know every drop is precious and they can deal with a few crystals and fine minerals. Though I filter well when it is thinner, I still label it as unfiltered, because I don't do the final filter.

Today I am having a pretty good sap run, as hoped. It's not as big as it gets but so far I have collected 3.5 gallons which I added to yesterday's 3.5 gallons. I was able to cook it all down to "almost syrup" between raindrops. Now it is storming pretty hard out there. There should be a lull just before sunset and I will collect my last batch of sap and either refrigerate it or cook it down with the rest, weather permitting. Despite the rain I sat outside and was mesmerized by the boiling sap! Eventually Buster and I went inside to watch it from the dining room window. Since my cooker is not covered I did get raindrops in it but I don't think it was enough to have much impact... Glad I got it in before the waves of rain coming down now though!

Here I am for my last hoorah. We've cooked about 2 gallons of syrup the old fashioned way. Hard work, lots of mud sliding, but lots of fresh air and moments of relaxation while cooking. I expect a little more sap this weekend, maybe a boat load on Tuesday, and then I'm pulling the rest of my taps. Though the weather in the first week in March looks promising, I cannot stay and it is too nerve-wracking having to depend on my neighbor. He cooked about 13 bottles of syrup for me and left me about 13 gallons of sap to cook when I returned. He helped me collect sap and cook while I've been back, so I could not have been successful without him, but I think I need to call it. I've already pulled 9 taps: A couple because the trees stopped producing, but most because they were not worth the risk of falling when going up and down slippery banks, for a half cup of sap. The big producers are still churning it out, except Lloyd. His tap came out so easily that I think something happened where the seating was damaged which could explain why he dried up. He gave us much excellent sap until recently, so I am grateful. One more big cook on Tuesday and that is it. 2 gallons is a far cry from the 3.25 cups I cooked last year! 30 trees is too much for me alone. I have to decide if I want to continue. For myself, I enjoy it and I love having fresh syrup I produced myself! But it is stressful. I will either only tap 20 trees, instead of 30, or I will run tubing to make it safer and easier once set up. I resist the tubing system because it is a learning curve and also removes the sentimental element of visiting my trees. Many decisions to make in the coming months!

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