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How Sweet It Is!  That Special Taste of Spring...

Maple Sugaring at Chuck's Sugarbush

NYS Gazetteer Pages 72 & 58

Our dear friends, brothers Chuck (l) and Bruce (r) Winship

 Perhaps the only thing sweeter than having your own dreams come true is to see the dreams of a really special friend become reality.  You may recall a while back (Tom and Huck, May 2002) I recounted our adventures in search of our friend Chuck Winship’s sugarbush at the southern end of Canadice Lake in Springwater, New York.  We’ve made several visits back to his farm since that first trip and have watched his dream of having his own maple sugaring operation come to fruition.  For the past two years, Chuck and his brother Bruce and many friends have cleared brush, created a network of trails through over 100 acres of forest, ran 14 miles of tubing, tapped 2500 maple trees, built a fabulous two-story sugar house  - complete with a cozy wood burning stove, an old-fashioned wood-burning kitchen stove, and a covered porch for picnics, developed ski and mountain bike trails across the steep hillsides, and have installed enough equipment and associated hardware to make your head spin:  incredible custom-made stainless steel sap processing equipment, state of the art reverse osmosis and UV filters, container-filling equipment...when Chuck does something, he does it right, putting it mildly.

We waited in anticipation for the weather to turn this spring and headed down to Chuck’s farm a couple of weeks ago to help him complete preparations for the spring sap harvest and maple sugar production activity.   “There’s still about three feet of snow in the woods,” he warned.  “I have some snowshoes you can borrow if you want.”  Snowshoes are fitted according to your weight and what you’re going to be doing with them.  Taking into consideration that Chuck is a physically fit mountain of a man at well over six feet tall with weight to match, I figured that I would never “fit into his shoes.”  Eager to get away from our typical Saturday tasks, we took a foray into Rochester to procure our own snowshoes...something we’ve been talking about doing for a couple of years.  A lad at Galyan’s spent nearly an hour with us, explaining the sizing and applications of each type and helped us try on various brands.  We came away with two pair of Atlas snowshoes with a 30% end of season discount.  Sweet. 

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny and I actually was up before 8 a.m.   It’s a funny thing - I bounce right out of bed when my day involves something other than a normal work routine.  Ethan doubted my decision to leave Bernice in charge of the house for the day, but she’s almost two now and spends less time sleeping than the rest of our feline friends.  We headed south on Route 21 and found an outstanding place for breakfast in Canandaigua - The Villager Restaurant. Huge bowls appeared in front of us filled with a layer of crispy hash browns smothered with scrambled eggs, topped with bacon, and finished with cheddar cheese.  We felt our arteries clog with each forkful but didn’t care.  It was great, a rare treat.  Next time we vowed to split an order; a single order was way too much for one person to eat.

We keep exploring new routes to Chuck’s sugarbush and there’s a never-ending combination of them. Roads between the finger lakes twist and turn and double-back on themselves and occasionally just end.   Ethan plotted a convoluted course through the countryside, with our trusty GPS ready to tell us which direction we were really going.  Leaving Canandaigua we headed south on County Route 32, then down 64 to Route 34 at South Bristol.  Continuing south on Route 33, we took the 2^nd left on Davis Road, then south again on Gulick Road (that’s where the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s Cumming Nature Center is).  So far, so good.    Picking up French Hill Road our plan was to find Liddiard Road in the obscure mini-burg of Garlinghouse.  In theory, it should take us to Richards Road and over the hill to Pardee Hollow Road and to Chuck’s sugarbush.  What’s the saying? “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” couldn’t have been more apropos.  Each road we tried to navigate “over the hill” was closed and full of snow; they’re seasonal roads and there’s a good reason for that, unless you’re on a snowmobile.  Doubling back several times we returned to Garlinghouse-Atlanta Road, found Pardee Road, and were finally over the hill and heading north to our destination.  Whew!  Can’t wait to take the 4-wheelers down there this summer...so many dirt roads that need to be explored!

“Hey Chuck! We’re here!  We were in the area an hour ago but couldn’t get over the hill!”  Ethan jumped into a project to insert a damper into a steam exhaust stack that Chuck had procured from his Amish friends, then we all took a vigorous hike up the steep hillsides to inspect the lines for leaks.  Tubing runs from each tapped tree into larger secondary and tertiary collection tubes, and gravity brings the sap down the hill into huge stainless steel collection tanks in the sugar shack.  

Things were looking good; two new filters were ready to go on-line when the sap started flowing.  A UV sterilization filter had just arrived; it’s the same kind that’s now used in the apple cider making process.  The reverse osmosis filter literally squeezes the excess water from the sap to dramatically reduce the processing time, and can process over 600 gallons per hour. 

Weather conditions continued to improve; sap runs best when nights are cold and days are warm and preferably sunny to help thaw the tubing.  By our visit the following week, the sap was roaring down the hill and the mighty boiler was turning the clear liquid into perfect light amber syrup - one of the best things on earth.  The 9^th annual Maple Weekend was coming up and the trees were cooperating, equipment functioning well, and just a few finishing touches were needed on the building in preparation for the event.  Chuck just stood and smiled.  We did too. 

You can find Chuck’s “Sugarbush Hollow” pure maple syrup at Mayer’s Cider Mill on Five Mile Line Road in Webster.  He also sells it at the farmers market in Fairport in the summer.  Once you try it, you’ll really know what this is all about. 

Next time... maple cream, wet walnuts, Jack Wax, and hot pancakes with freshly made syrup - Maple Weekend!