Dozens braved the cold on Saturday to attend Mape Seekend events at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill and Stockbridge Valley.
VVS held its second of two weekends on Saturday and Sunday, while Stockbridge Valley hosted its only weekend.
Mike Maguire, a junior with the VVS FFA, gave tours of the sap house. “Seeing the amount of people coming out and being amazed by what we do and how much work we put into it,” Maguire said, is what he enjoys about the weekends.
The VVS weekend includes a pancake breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to noon served in the high school cafeteria. Adults are $7, senior citizens and children under 12 are $5, and pre-schoolers are free. At 10 a.m. the Maple Queen and Princess will give a presentation on cooking with maple in the high school cafeteria. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. there will be a maple barbecue at the sap house; from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. there will be sap house tours and an open house, as well as maple syrup and maple products for sale in the Chevron Center.
Sunday is the official tree-tapping ceremony at 11 a.m. on the high school lawn. They will also have a check presentation from Brymer Humphreys’ farm in New Hartford, which recently won Monsanto’s an America’s Farmers Grow Communities award. The program, allows farmers to enter to win $2,500 for their favorite community nonprofit organization. One winner is selected in each of the 1,324 eligible counties across 40 states. Brymer Humphreys was the Oneida County recipient.
The winners of the maple coloring contest will be announced following the ceremony.
Jeremy Hubalek of Barneveld attended the VVS maple weekend to see what’s involved in sugaring, because he is interested in producing maple syrup on a small scale. “I was very interested in how the process worked, and how the burner worked with wood,” Hubalek said.
The Stockbridge Valley FFA has approximately 100 members in grades 6-12.
Stockbridge Valley FFA advisor Erin McCaffrey said that it takes approximately 40-43 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup, depending on the sugar content.
McCaffrey said that in order to make maple candies you need to figure out the boiling point of water on that day and add 32 degrees to successfully boil syrup into candies.
Throughout the weekend, Stockbridge held an open house, boiling demonstrations on making maple confections and on Saturday they had a check presentation from Carol Johnson of Quiet Valley Farms, which won an America’s Farmers Grow Communities award for Madison County. She selected the Stockbridge Valley FFA to receive the $2,500. Kent and Keith Johnson said that much of Quiet Valley farmland is located within Stockbridge and that is how it was decided to give the money to the FFA. “It’s our way to help out the community,” Kent said.
The Stockbridge sap house will also be undergoing some renovations in the upcoming months because of the capital building project that was just passed. The school will be looking to switch from using fuel oil to natural gas to boil down the sap down. McCaffrey said the three main elements that will be looked at when upgrading the sap house are safety, sanitation, and efficiency. Elements that aren’t going to be covered by the capital building project can then be added through the money from Monsanto.
The Stockbridge event continues today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
