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| Maple
Sugaring at RFS |
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| Introduction |
| Before
the Field Station became what it is today, it was a working farm,
complete with a smokehouse, fields, and a sugar maple grove. Continuing
the century old tradition on the field station property, students,
alumni, community members, staff and faculty head out each spring
to tap the trees and make their own maple syrup. |
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On
average the station produces about 1800 gallons of sap water
each season, or approximately 60 gallons of pure, grade
A maple syrup. This syrup is given away to alumni, students,
faculty, and the volunteers . . . the syrup which survives
the initial onslaught of waffles and hungry workers at the
station that is! The sugar water is harvested using two
methods. Many of the trees are tapped the same way that
they were back when the Grove family owned the land, by
individual buckets hung on the trunks. Some of the sugar
groves, however, are tapped with more modern methodology.
All of these trees are connected to plastic tubing which
channels the sap water into collecting buckets at the bottom
of the field station's many ridges. |
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| “The
syrupping operation gives students a wonderful opportunity
to escape from the pressures of campus for a day to trudge
around in the snow and mud. It's a wonderful way to relax
with friends on a weekend. Oh, and then there's always the
waffle binges . . . that doesn't need explaining."
--Brian Olsen, Former president of the Juniata Sapsuckers |
Sugaring
... is not really a commercial operation. It is that happiest
o f combinations,
a commercial affair which is also an annual rite, even
an act of love.
--Noel
Perrin
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