Windstorm Damage Report and Clean-up

In late December the northeast experienced the strongest wind storm in many years.  The lower elevations were a bit breezy but as you moved higher in elevation and closer to the mountains the wind gusts exceeded 80 mph and at times approached 100 mph!  Our maple farm is located just to the east of Mount Mansfield and being the windward side we experienced the full brunt of the storm.

Damage on our 120 acre sugar bush was primarily on the east and northeast facing part of the hills.  There are areas where dozens of 100+ year old full grown sugar maples blew over leaving huge holes in the forest.  In addition to losing over a hundred maple trees, hundreds of other trees blew down causing extensive damage to our sap pipeline systems.

It took us over three weeks of clearing trees and debris and another 2 weeks of repairs to get the woods back online for sugaring.  In all we lost between 2-5% of all maples, however we will gain back some taps as we expand lines to collect from trees that were previously too small.

With another 3-5 weeks to go before the maples begin to run sap we can now focus on other tasks.  There are several significant upgrades we would like to implement to our infrastructure in an effort to increase efficiency and maximize syrup production going forward.  More on this as it occurs...