Waples Maples

03/05/2026

Got a nice boil going tonight, making liquid gold

03/03/2026

Welp, hobbies don’t come without setbacks. Boiled Sunday for 12 hours straight and at about hour 11, heard a “thunk-thunk-tunk” and then the evaporator went quiet. Gone was the normal hum of the blower fan, gurgle of the hard boil, and hissing of syrup burning on the sides of the baffle pan. Apparently I messed up and completely melted my entire blower fan assembly. New repairs went in “smoothly” and with few unheard unkind words said. Back up and running again and boiling tonight.

03/01/2026

Got the new storage tank setup, finally can have some bigger runs of cooking. Fill my big stock tank, then run the pump to my overhead tank which flows around the stack to pre heat the sap before going into my rear pan. From the rear pan it’ll boil and run through my copper auto siphon on the left into my baffled pan. As you can see in the image, as the sap flows through the baffle pan, the more dense syrup collects on the right at the end of the flow. From there I draw off pure maple syrup.

02/17/2026

What a winter. With that being said, it’s been a minute since the last update of all the shenanigans. We left off with I finally finished the coop run, of course under the ever watchful supervision of Jack.
And then a massive accomplishment began in the fall of my Wife’s dream coming to fruition of her very own horse stables. So all fall into winter has been learning and building all of that. Installed my very first “legit” pasture fence and couldn’t be more pleased with how that turned out. We did end up having a very rough first winter for the horses but were at least able to keep all the buckets thawed the entire time, only two burst water lines luckily.
Now the harsh winter is over, that means we’re going to be diving into maple syrup season. I’ll be posting pics and videos soon as my favorite time of the year is here

08/28/2025

It’s been a minute since I’ve last posted. Been as busy as ever on the farm, finishing out the summer and making sure everything is ready for winter. Got my off and on project completed of building a chicken run, all with the help of my supervisor Jack. He told be how to install it so that he can watch the chickens

06/02/2025

One of many loads of firewood to start prepping for next season, just an afternoons work

05/28/2025

So many babies on the farm this past week

05/23/2025

Interesting piece of history about the origin of the sugar shack. Built as a homage to John R. Greenwood’s original cabin when they traveled from Rehoboth, Massachusetts (Now Rhode Island) and quickly built a 16’x20’ cabin in preparation for the soon approaching winter. Becoming early settlers of Tyrrell Hill in October, 1814.

05/23/2025

My sugar shack featured in some history today. In order to figure out where you want to go in life, you have to learn where you’re from.

This photo appears in the 1999 Vienna Bicentennial Book. It was labeled in the book as the "Bradley Sugar House." Does anyone know if it's still there and where it is/was located?