Vermont Sugaring History Recorded

When I was visiting the Minor Family Maple, LLC yesterday and saw all the new shiny equipment and new building, I started looking around for what you will find in just about every sugar house you go in to. Records of the first day sap was boiled each year. I just knew that Tom's father, Wallace must have had his records in the old sugar house and must have transferred them to the new one.

Sure enough, up on the wall were a couple of old boards about a foot and a half long by 12 inches wide and written in pencil on the boards was the date they boiled the first sap since 1954. Tom told me, that is the year I was born.

The next time you visit a sugar house, ask the owner if he has a record of the first day boiled in his sugar house and I am pretty sure you will find they do. Its not fancy, just a one liner, usually written in pencil on the wall someplace in the sugar house. Any I have ever seen were never written on a piece of paper, they were written right on the old board on the wall.