They’re boiling at the sugarhouse on the 7th-generation McDonald Farm in Danville, Vermont.
Penny Lou keeps watch at the back of sugarhouse.
A pile of finely split wood, mostly cut on the farm, is ready to fire the arch.
Phil Beattie feeds the fire.
The sap moves through the channels as it thickens.
The steam rises through the roof.
Jacob Mills waits for the syrup to flow and fill the bucket.
The flow starts.
There’s a lot going on here: the game is on the phone, there’s Guinness for St. Patrick’s Day, and on the wall are the tallies from each day’s boiling together with the yearly totals.
Boiling is a social occasion. Charlie stops by to catch up and have a beer.
Each boiling produces syrup with a slightly different color. The lighter the color, the lighter the taste. Vermonters used to prefer the lightest syrup; now most people prefer medium (“amber”) or darker. ●
Love the photos and the fresh feel for the new AoE
Wonderful photographs, Kim, the whole thing start to finish--except you didn't show the taps in the trees. How many taps do they put out in a season? Asking for a friend who claims she had a thousand taps on her long ago VT farm--and ran it all herself. Sounds like a big job to me.